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GREENLAND ICEFIELDS 
AND LIFE IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 




Scene on the shore of Greenland. Native carrying his kayak. 



GREENLAND ICEFIELDS 

AND 

LIFE IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 



WITH A NEW DISCUSSION OF 
THE CAUSES OF THE ICE AGE 



^ 



BY 

G. FREDERICK WRIGHT, D.D., LL.D., F.G.S.A. 

AUTHOR OF THE ICE AGE IN NORTH AMERICA, ETC. 
AND 

WARREN UPHAM, A.M., F.G.S.A. 

LATE OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, MINNESOTA, 
AND THE UNITED STATES 






WITH NUMEROUS MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 






; ;^ of co, v . 



I FEB 14 1896 



N E W— YO R K 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

i8q6 



, W7 



Copyright, 1896, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



INSET MAPS. 

FACING PAGE 

23 

coast in the vicinity of Sukker- 
66 



Map of Labrador 
Map of the Greenland 

toppen 

Map of Greenland 

Map of the regions about the North pole . 

Map of glaciated areas in Europe and North America 



245 

297^ 



13 



ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT. 

FIGURE 

Scene on the shore of Greenland. Native carrying his 

kayak Frontispiece 

1. Iceberg stranded at the entrance of St. John's Harbour, 

July 15, 1894 

The most majestic iceberg seen off the coast of Labrador 
A more distant view of the same .... 
An iceberg which has shifted its plane of equilibrium 
A symmetrical iceberg, probably two hundred and 
fifty feet high 

6. Flowing outline of the Labrador coast, with an unusually 

symmetrical berg in the foreground, about one hun 
dred feet high and two miles from shore 

7. Storehouse at Cape Charles Harbour, with a sealskin 

stretched out to dry. Chapel on the hill 

8. Winter quarters in Labrador 

9. Little chapel between the seas. Cape Charles Harbour 

10. Battle Harbour, the capital of Labrador . 

11. A House at the Punch Bowl, with the chapel on the hill 

12. The Devil's Dining Table, Henley Harbour, Labrador 
A Labrador Eskimo lady in full winter dress . 

xiii 



11 



•24 

25 
26 
27 
28 
32 
36 
47 



x i v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

FIGURE PAGE 

14. St. John's Harbour, Newfoundland . . . . . 53 

15. Floe ice west of Greenland .55 

16. A landing upon the rock, showing a trap-dike . . 63 

17. View from the harbour of Sukkertoppen . . . .67 

18. Scene on the way to Isortok Fiord . . . . • . 71 

19. First camp on the fiord 74 

20. Ikamiut. An igloo to the right 78 

21. Sermersut, four thousand feet high, with the village in 

the foreground 81 

22. A typical igloo • . .83 

23. Ikamiut Fiord, looking east. The main glacier eight 

miles distant. The island is two miles this side . . 88 

24. Ikamiut Fiord, looking south. Showing local glaciers . 93 

25. The backward view from the glacier down the fiord. 

Moraines in the foreground 97 

26. Front of a Greenland glacier 102 

27. The scenery looking west from Sukkertoppen . . . 107 

28. A side view . . .122 

29. A typical Eskimo couple 135 

30. A company of Eskimo boys 137 

31. A umiak, with women rowing 139 

32. Greenland kayaks 141 

33. Kayakers coming out to meet us . . . . . 142 

34. Kayakers throwing bird spears in the harbour of Suk- 

kertoppen 145 

35. The better class of Eskimo houses at Sukkertoppen . 147 

36. The Catechist's daughter in full dress . . . .150 

37. A typical Eskimo boy .151 

38. Our camp at Ikamiut 159 

39. Church at Sukkertoppen. Men carrying a umiak in the 

foreground * . 161 

40. A company of Eskimo women on the outlook . . . 163 

41. Eskimo household servants. Married and unmarried . 166 

42. Arrival of the Rigel for relief of the Miranda . . .170 

43. Eskimo family, showing Danish blood .... 175 

44. The Danish ladies at Sukkertoppen ..... 180 

45. The governor's house at Sukkertoppen .... 183 

46. The north side of Sermersut, showing proximity of ice- 

fields and vegetation 190 



PEEFACE. 



The immediate impulse to the preparation of this 
volume arose in connection with a trip to Greenland 
taken on the steamer Miranda with an excursion party 
organized by Dr. F. A. Cook in the summer of 1894. 
While preparing to make the most of this excursion, 
much difficulty was encountered in collecting the facts 
which one would most like to know concerning this 
mysterious land. The varied and exciting fortunes of 
the Miranda, while not sufficient to form the frame- 
work of a volume, were still of no small value in giving 
vividness to one's conceptions of the unique conditions 
of the country, enabling one who shared them to enter 
with better understanding into the descriptions given 
by others, and to combine them into a more satisfac- 
tory general view. Upon some points, also, our obser- 
vations furnished a positive enlargement to our knowl- 
edge of the country. Since, therefore, numerous refer- 
ences will be made to incidents in our voyage, it will 
be profitable here to give a brief sketch of the fortunes 
of the expedition. 



vi PREFACE. 

On the 7th of July, 1894, the party, consisting of 
fifty-one, besides the officers and crew, set sail from 
New York in the Miranda, an iron steamship two hun- 
dred and twenty feet long and of eleven hundred tons 
burden. After stopping at Sydney, Nova Scotia, and 
St. John's, Newfoundland, we steamed out of the latter 
place on the evening of July loth, aiming to touch upon 
the coast of Labrador, to leave a portion of our party, 
and a few native Eskimos who had been at the Colum- 
bian Exposition. 

Everything went well up to the morning of the 17th, 
when, during a dense fog, the steamer ran directly into 
an iceberg ; but the injury proving to be entirely above 
the water line, we made our way to Cape Charles Har- 
bour, on the coast of Labrador, about fifteen miles dis- 
tant, where our engineer and carpenter were able to 
make such temporary repairs that we could return to St. 
John's and readjust our plans. Here new iron plates 
were substituted for those which had been injured, and 
everything was put in good condition, so that on the 
28th of July we decided to sail directly for southern 
Greenland. On the 3d of August the mountains in the 
vicinity of Erederikshaab came in view, but ice pre- 
vented our reaching land. Steaming slowly west and 
north as the fog permitted us until the morning of Au- 
gust 7th, we found a clear passage open to a broad bay, 
which proved to be the harbour of Sukkertoppen, the 
largest, and in many respects the most interesting, of 
the Eskimo settlements upon the coast. 



PREFACE. vii 

The captain decided to remain here two days, which 
afforded me, with a small party, opportunity to make an 
excursion in small boats a considerable distance up one 
of the fiords which set back from this point toward the 
inland ice. On the morning of the 9th we started for 
the north, hoping to reach Disco and to visit the Ja- 
kobshavn glacier ; but it w r as now too late in the season 
to think of carrying out our original plan of going still 
farther north, and reaching Peary's headquarters in In- 
glefield Gulf. And, now, even these more modest hopes 
were rudely dashed, by our steamer's running upon a 
reef about seven miles out, compelling us to return to 
ISukkertoppen in a disabled condition. In certain con- 
ditions of the water we should have passed safely over, 
but heavy swells caused the steamer to strike the rocks 
several times, and injured the bottom under the ballast 
tank near the middle of the vessel. 

Hearing that some fishing schooners had been seen 
somewhere in the vicinity of Holsteinborg, small boats 
were despatched in that direction for assistance. As ten 
days must elapse before their return would be possible, 
opportunity was given me for a longer and more satis- 
factory expedition into the interior. The time was im- 
proved by an excursion to Ikamiut, a miserable Eskimo 
settlement a few miles from the head of a fiord into 
which there enters a great glacier projecting from the 
inland ice. 

Upon returning to Sukkertoppen, the schooner Eigel, 
under command of Captain George W. Dixon, of Glou- 



yjjj PREr ACE. 

cester, Massachusetts, came to our relief. As the exact 
amount of damage to the Miranda was difficult to de- 
termine, the captain entertained the hope that she might 
be able to steam back to Labrador, but the hazard was 
too great to venture without a convoy. The members 
of the party were therefore all transferred to the Rigel, 
which was only a hundred feet long and of a hundred 
tons burden. Everything but the bare necessities was 
left upon the Miranda. We were, of course, very much 
crowded upon the schooner, but the captain and crew 
were so cordial in their services, and the relief was so 
grateful, that every one was contented and happy. The 
prospect of having to winter in Greenland was the less 
endurable from the fact that our provisions would be 
sufficient for only about two months ; and the stock 
of civilized food in the place was so small, that before 
the middle of winter we should all be reduced to the 
native diet of uncooked fish, raw meat, and blubber. 

On the 21st of August we set out for home, with the 
Miranda taking the Rigel in tow, but at the end of 
thirty-six hours, at midnight, when we were 300 miles 
from land and the sea was rolling heavily, the leak in 
the Miranda started anew, and she sounded the signal 
of distress, informing us that it was necessary to aban- 
don her, and that we should lie to with the cable with 
which we were towed still attached until the officers 
and the crew could be transferred to the schooner. 

The scenes of the next few hours were the experience 
of a lifetime. With a man standing ready to cut the 



PREFACE. i x 

cable in case the Miranda should suddenly go down, we 
tossed about upon the waves for three hours, awaiting 
the approach of the first boat load from the steamer. 
At length it arrived, and, after the exercise of an in- 
finite amount of labor and skill, was safely brought 
alongside, and the men upon it transferred to the deck 
of our stanch schooner. Others followed, until after 
another hour and a half we heaved a sigh of relief 
when the last man was on board and not a life had 
been lost. On leaving the Miranda, Captain Farrell 
had shipped the cable, so that she could drift away from 
us, and we took our last look at the unfortunate vessel. 
The lights were still burning, the smoke was issuing 
from her chimneys, the pumps were still vigorously at 
work, and the wheel was still turning. Thus, with 
nearly all our personal effects and treasures on board, 
she steamed off to her lonely fate in the mist and dark- 
ness of that boisterous sea, while we directed our course 
for the southern coast of Labrador. 

There were now ninety-one of us on board the little 
schooner, which was calculated for the accommodation 
of only twenty. After twelve days of various vicissi- 
tudes we reached Sydney in safety, and the perils and 
discomforts of our journey were over. So far as our 
experiences enabled us to add to the knowledge of the 
regions visited, and seemed to be of general interest, 
they have in their appropriate place been worked into 
the various chapters of the book. 

In the preparation of the volume I have been happy 



x PREFACE. 

in having the aid of Mr. Warren Upham, with whom 
I have been closely associated in glacial investigations 
ever since we worked together on the New Hampshire 
Geological Survey in 1876. His continuous labours in 
investigating the glacial phenomena of New England 
and the Northwest, his minute knowledge of natural 
history, and his wide study of the literature of the sub- 
ject, give great weight to the conclusions to which he 
has arrived upon the theoretical questions connected with 
the Glacial period and its relation to existing ice-fields. 
Mr. Upham has drafted the series of maps here used 
and has prepared chapters viii to xiv, but in every part 
of the volume we have co-operated with each other, and 
availed ourselves of each other's knowledge. 

In conclusion, I must express my obligations to Pro- 
fessor William H. Brewer, and Messrs. George W. Gard- 
ner, Walter S. Root, A. R. Thompson, James D. Dewell, 
R. Kersting, J. R» Fordyce, and Drs. R. 0. Stebbins, 
F. A. Cook, and J. F. Valle, for the use of photographs 
taken by them during our excursion. The illustrations 
obtained from Professor T. C. Chamberlin were first 
published in the Bulletin of the Geological Society of 
America for February, 1895, and are used by permis- 
sion of that society. 

Grateful acknowledgements are due, also, to Judge 
Henry C. White, of Cleveland, Ohio, for the use of 
his large collection of books upon Arctic and Antarctic 
explorations. G. Frederick Wright. 

Oberlin, Ohio, November, 1895. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGES 

I. — The ice of the Labrador current . . 1-22 

II. — The coast of Labrador 23-52 

III. — Spitzbergen ice in Davis Strait . . . 53-65 

IV. — Excursions on the coast of Greenland. . 66-98 

V. — The coast in detail 99-126 

VI. — The Eskimos of the North Atlantic . . 127-168 

VII. — Europeans in Greenland 169-187 

VIII. — The plants of Greenland .... 188-213 

IX. — The animals of Greenland .... 214-244 

X. — Explorations of the inland ice of Greenland 245-296 
XI. — Comparison of present and Pleistocene ice 

sheets 297-309 

XII. — Pleistocene changes of level around the 

basin of the North Atlantic . . . 310-333 

XIII.— The causes of the Ice Age .... 334-347 
XIV.— Stages of the Ice Age in North America 

and Europe 348-361 

XV.— Summary and conclusion 362-391 

Index 393-407 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xv 

FIGURE PAGE 

47. Kayak, with inflated bladder and other implements of 

chase 223 

48. Women dressing a ringed seal just brought in by a 

kayaker 226 

49. Exploration of the Greenland ice sheet in the vicinity 

of the Frederikshaab glacier, by Jensen and Kor- 
nerup, 1878 264 

50. Enlarged map of Jensen's nunataks, with the currents 

and moraines of the surrounding ice sheet . . . 265 

51. East face of Bryant Glacier, Inglefield Gulf. Showing 

vertical wall and stratification of the ice (Chamberlin) 290 

52. Dalrymple Island, near the Greenland coast. Showing 

unglaciated profile (Chamberlin) 292 

53. Southeastern Carey Island. Showing characteristic gla- 

ciated contour (Chamberlin) 294 

54. Gable Glacier, Inglefield Gulf, showing inset debris and 

lamination of the ice (Chamberlin) .... 308 

55. North side of Gable Glacier, showing inthrust of layers 

of debris (Chamberlin) 311 

56. North side of Gable Glacier, Inglefield Gulf, showing an 

overthrust, with debris along the plane of contact. 
The ice is much veined (Chamberlin) . . . .314 

57. Stages in the recession of the North American ice sheet. 

Glaciated portion unshaded 353 

58. Stages in the recession of the European ice sheet. Gla- 

ciated portion unshaded 356 

59. Iceberg off the coast of Labrador 363 

60. Icebergs off Labrador seen from the shore at a distance 365 

61. View of the inland ice, east of the outskirts, near Suk- 

kertoppen . °"° 

62. Looking eastward from Cape Charles, Labrador, showing 

the subdued character of the sky line .... 379 

63. Near view of the Devil's Dining Table, Labrador . . 381 

64. Contented Eskimos 383 

65. Eskimos sporting in their kayaks. One jumping over 

the other . . . 385 

6Q. Towing the Rigel out of the Punch Bowl during a calm 389 



I > 



§ 



I 



THE ICE OF THE LABRADOR CURRENT. 3 

Newfoundland stood out sharply upon the horizon from 
morning till night ; but most inspiring of all was the 
constant procession of icebergs which the steamship 
Miranda and her passengers were meeting the entire 
day. The size of many of these bergs was enormous, 
and their shapes were often fantastic and beautiful in 
the extreme. One, which we attempted to measure, was 
estimated by the best judges to have pinnacles which 
rose more than seven hundred feet above the water. 
The area of its base must have been as much as ten or 
twelve acres, or as large as that of the largest of the 
pyramids of Egypt. For more than thirty miles this 
huge object continued to tower upon our vision in lonely 
solitude far up above the watery horizon. If the shape 
of it had been regular, this would have implied an 
enormous depth below the water, since the specific 
gravity of glacial ice is such that about seven cubic feet 
are below water to one above ; but in this case the visi- 
ble part of the berg was much wasted by the joint action 
of rain, sun, wind, and waves, while the submerged base 
was greatly extended as compared with the portion 
which was above the water. What at first seemed to be 
one gigantic pyramid, proved, as we shifted our position, 
to be two or three towers, separated by long spaces, 
yet rising from a common broad base of blue ice below 
the water. Over this submerged portion the waves were 
dashing as on a sunken reef of rocks. The general ap- 
pearance reminded one of the ruined cathedral at 
Utrecht, whose tower stands on one side of the street 
and the choir upon the other, the vast nave having dis- 
appeared, as the result of some accident, centuries ago. 
In the course of the day bergs of every imaginable form 
passed by us, or rather we passed by them, for their 
motion was inconsiderable. Their beauty of color was 



GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 



also indescribably diversified. The surface was the pure 
white of newly fallen snow ; the perpendicular face, 
where fresh, was the deepest azure, and where not fresh 






Fig. 2.— The most majestic iceberg seen off the coast of Labrador. 



was intersected by numerous seams of blue ; while the 
base, where partly obscured by water, shaded into a deli- 
cate green. 

Sixty bergs of large size were sometimes in view 
from the deck of our steamer at once. They were spe- 
cially numerous near the Strait of Belle Isle, toward 
which the Labrador current is attracted by the opening 
into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In this vicinity they 
are always a serious obstacle to navigation ; while the 



THE ICE OF THE LABRADOR CURRENT. 5 

danger is increased during the early part of the summer 
by the presence of extensive masses of floe ice, which, 
though less conspicuous, are more dangerous than their 
gigantic companions. On the island of Belle Isle the 
Canadian Government has built a lighthouse — the most 
northern on the eastern coast of America — and has es- 
tablished life-saving stations and stored supplies of food, 




Fig. 3.— A more distant view of the same. 

both to encourage commerce to take the most direct 
route from the St. Lawrence to Liverpool, and to afford 
relief to the many hapless navigators that are sure to 
meet with disaster in those treacherous waters. 

A friend who was sailing from Quebec to Liverpool in 
the early part of July, 18G4, informs me that his steam- 
er was detained in the ice for two or three days near the 
entrance to the strait; while another, who had taken 
passage from Glasgow to St. John's, Newfoundland, on 



Q GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

one of the Allan line of steamers, was caught amid 
the icebergs in a fog about one hundred miles east 
of the latter place, and detained in that hazardous con- 
dition from Monday until Thursday before the weather 
cleared sufficiently to render it safe to complete the 
passage. These experiences were by no means ex- 
traordinary. 

On the morning of the 17th we were destined to wit- 
ness a different phase of arctic navigation from that 
previously enjoyed. We were in the mouth of the Strait 
of Belle Isle, and had just passed its lighthouse. Ice- 
bergs as vast and beautiful and numerous as ever 
were around us ; but their beauty, and in most cases 
their presence, was obscured by a fitful but dense fog. 
Still the chances of encountering one seemed so slight, 
that we continued on our course, though at slackened 
speed. Suddenly a large spot in the mist ahead of the 
ship lighted up as if we were coming to a clear space. 
But to the experienced eyes of the mate and of the ice- 
pilot it was an ominous spectre, for it was the " ice 
blink " of a huge berg, which almost at that very instant 
emerged from the mist, towering hundreds of feet above 
us, and stretching out many hundred feet on either side. 
It being too late to avoid it, safety, if it could be secured 
at all, lay in taking the collision straight ahead, and the 
rudder was turned accordingly at the same instant that 
the wheel was reversed. The collision came all too soon. 
Great masses of ice fell upon the deck. The steamer 
reeled like a drunken man. But the passengers scarcely 
had time to secure an upright position again before all 
was quiet as death, while we anxiously watched the car- 
penter as he sounded the wells to see if there was a leak. 
Meantime the huge berg gleamed down upon us from 
its serene height in the mist, and revealed clearly the 



THE ICE OF THE LABRADOR CURRENT. 7 

painted sides of the great gash which had been made in 
it by the bow of our iron ship. 

After a few minutes of breathless anxiety it was 
ascertained that, beyond the breaking of three or four 
iron plates of the ship high above the water line and 
the disabling of one anchor, there was no damage done. 
Fortunately, we had hit this particular iceberg where 
there was no projecting foot below the water ; other- 
wise it would most surely have been a fatal collision to 
us. It was certainly thrilling for us to reflect that we 
had sailed, or steamed, by a most circuitous route for 
more than one thousand miles to encounter in the mist 
this particular berg, and had hit it at almost the only 
safe point which it presented for attack. 

After the collision, the comparative safety of iron 
and wooden vessels in encountering icebergs was a sub- 
ject of much animated discussion on board. Our own 
actual immunity from absolute disaster was an argument 
in favor of iron, while the pilot assured us that a wooden 
vessel in such a collision would have had her bowsprit 
driven in so as completely to disable the ship and send 
her to the bottom. The worst disaster of the season 
along this coast had occurred a few weeks before to a 
wooden ship which encountered the ice not far from the 
locality of our own accident, but with the most serious 
consequences. The ship sank almost immediately, and 
the crew and passengers, consisting of men, women, and 
children on their way from Newfoundland to the sum- 
mer fishing stations in Labrador, were many of them 
drowned, while the others were rescued with great diffi- 
culty from cakes of ice on which they had taken refuge. 

One pretty constant feature in the appearance of the 
largest icebergs could not fail to attract our attention. 
The most of them seemed to be partly turned over, so 



3 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

that the strata of ice which were originally horizontal 
were dipping at a considerable angle with the horizon. 
The natural exj:>lauation seems to be, that in the long 
journey which these icebergs have taken they have pre- 
sented, through almost the entire course, the same side 
to the sun, so that the southern exposure has constantly 
melted more rapidly than the northern side, thus dis- 
turbing the equilibrium and allowing the centre of 
gravity to migrate toward the northern edge, which con- 




Fig. 4. — An iceberg which has shifted its plane of equilibrium. 



stantly settles deeper into the water at the same time 
that the southern is elevated. Eventually the berg 
turns upon end ; thus producing a sudden transforma- 
tion in appearance. 

The history of these objects, the distance through 
which they have drifted, and the rate of their motion, 
are questions of much speculative interest. From all 
accounts it appears that the large bergs are formed by 



THE ICE OF THE LABRADOR CURRENT. 9 

the breaking off of masses of ice from glaciers whose 
ends project into the deep water of the sea, and so are 
composed of innumerable strata of consolidated snow 
which has accumulated upon some continental area. So 
far as we know, also, few icebergs of large size are de- 
rived from glaciers upon the American side of Davis 
Strait. Those of the Labrador current represent for 
the most part, therefore, the wastage from the Green- 
land glaciers, and are thus impressive witnesses to the 
extent of the glacial accumulations upon that desolate 
land. 

For the most part, also, the icebergs of the North 
Atlantic enter Baffin Bay north of Disco Island. A 
due quota comes from the glaciers at the head of 
Umanak Fiord and from the comparatively unknown 
region about Melville Bay, while others move in from 
Smith Sound, and from points still farther north. The 
journey, therefore, which most of those seen off the 
coast of southern Labrador have made covers a distance 
of eighteen hundred miles, while those which reach the 
latitude of Washington are no less than twenty-five 
hundred miles from their starting-place. The length of 
this journey is a witness at once to the vast mass of ice 
in the bergs and to the initial low temperature of the 
water which floats them southward. The ice, however, 
does its part in perpetuating the coolness of the Lab- 
rador current, the modifying influence of whose tem- 
perature is felt upon the coast as far south as Cape Cod. 

The continuance of such a procession of icebergs as 
floats southward with the Labrador current is due to a 
combination of causes. The snowfall over the vast con- 
tinent of Greenland is not excessive, representing prob- 
ably no more than from ten to fifteen inches annually 
when reduced to the standard of water, but even this 



10 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

small amount exceeds the melting capacity of the sun's 
rays in that latitude ; so that there is an annual addition 
to the thickness of the ice-sheet. This excess of frozen 
water is enabled, through the plastic character of ice, to 
work off slowly toward the sea level in lines of least re- 
sistance, which are determined largely by the character 
of the Greenland coast. Nearly everywhere this is 
mountainous, with occasional openings to the sea con- 
stituting the natural lines of drainage which have doubt- 
less been occupied by water courses from time imme- 
morial. In general, these openings are narrow and deep, 
corresponding to the fiords of Norway. The movement 
of the inland ice is toward the head of these fiords, 
where the frozen current becomes concentrated, and 
pushes out into the deep water, presenting everywhere a 
perpendicular face of from one hundred to two or three 
hundred feet in height, and extending from cliff to cliff 
across the fiord. 

The masses of ice from the front of these glaciers 
are broken off in two ways. Much falls off directly into 
the water from the upper edge of the precipitous face ; 
for the movement of the ice at the top is faster than 
that at the bottom, and so tends constantly to project it 
forward until it overhangs the lower portion and falls 
by the mere weight of gravity. But such fragments are 
comparatively small. The larger bergs are formed when 
the glacier has been pushed so far out into the water as to 
be lifted by its floating power, and so separated from the 
parent mass. It is thought by Rink that the end of a 
glacier may sometimes be pushed forward for several 
miles after its bottom has become separated from the 
bottom of the fiord, and before the buoyant power of 
the water is sufficient to cast it off as an iceberg. 

One of the glaciers coming into Disco Bay, observed 



THE ICE OF THE LABRADOR CURRENT. H 

by Helland, was estimated to have a thickness of 920 
feet and a breadth of 18,400 feet, and was found to be 
moving forty-seven feet per day. At this rate, 300,- 
000,000,000 cubic feet of ice would be sent off by this 
glacier in a single year. Another glacier surveyed by 



Fig. 5.— A symmetrical iceberg, probably two hundred and fifty feet high. 

the same authority sends off 79,000,000,000 cubic feet 
annually. Eink estimates that on the Danish part of 
the west coast of Greenland up to 74° N. latitude there 
are twenty ice-fiords from which bergs issue, and that 
120,000 square miles of territory contribute to furnish 
the supply. To provide the amount of ice carried away 
by these floating bergs, an excess of only two inches and 
a half of snow over the contributing area would be 
requisite, so vast is the cumulative effect of apparently 
insignificant causes when sufficient time is at command. 
As already remarked, the Labrador current bears 
also an immense amount of floe ice. This, too, has 
been formed along the shores of Baffin Bay, and is from 



12 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

time to time separated from them to accompany the 
procession of icebergs southward. Floe ice rises but a 
few feet above the surface of the water, except in some 
places where the cakes have been piled one upon anoth- 
er in the collisions which occasionally occur during 
storms. 

The westerly movement of this ice deserves attention. 
According to a well-known law, currents which flow 
from the north to the south are thrown to the west by 
the revolution of the earth upon its axis, since the east- 
erly motion of the earth's surface increases with each 
parellel of lower latitude. As a consequence, this floe 
ice, together with many icebergs, is so crowded against 
the coast of Labrador as greatly to interfere with navi- 
gation to its ports. Oftentimes a whole summer passes 
during which it is almost impossible to enter any of the 
northern ports on account of this ice, and sometimes it 
is difficult to get into any of the ports even as far south 
as Hamilton Inlet until past the middle of summer. 

In the main, the course of the icebergs and the floe 
ice is the same. But the great depth to which the ice- 
bergs sink places them under the control of the under 
currents, and makes them independent of wind and tide. 
It is not unusual, therefore, especially in the far north, 
to see a towering berg moving directly against the wind 
and tide, and crashing through the thinner masses of 
floe ice which encumber the surface of the water. Dr. 
Kane records that at times he availed himself of this 
mode of locomotion, anchoring his ship to an iceberg 
which was moving northward when all the surface ele- 
ments conspired to drive him southward. 

But to make up for the inconveniences which the 
ice of the Labrador current occasions to the meagre 
commerce of the region, it brings along almost the only 



THE ICE OF THE LABRADOR CURRENT. 13 

booty which secures the country any commerce at all. 
In the early spring the saddleback seals (Phoca Grmi- 
landica) * of the far north move southward in vast 
numbers with this ice to propagate their young in the 
latitude of southern Labrador. Naturally, also, the 
polar bear avails himself of the same means of locomo- 
tion to keep company with the seals, which constitute 
his favourite food. During April and the early part of 
May numerous steamers, fitted for the purpose, set out 
from St. John's, Newfoundland, and venture boldly into 
this ice of the Labrador coast to secure the game thus 
brought within their reach. 

One of the first objects which attracted our attention 
upon entering Cape Charles Harbour for repairs was the 
magnificent skin of a polar bear which had been killed 
the previous season on the land near by. Thinking he 
had moved far enough south, the brute had deserted the 
floe, and, having reached the land, immediately turned 
his steps northward. The spring was already well 
advanced and the snow was soft, so that at every step 
Bruin went in the full length of his legs. It was an 
easy matter, therefore, for the hunters, inexperienced 
though they were in dealing with such large game, to 
follow him upon snowshoes and secure his capture. 

Three remarkable experiences in the floe ice of 
Baffin Bay give us much definite information concern- 
ing the motion of the current which bears it southward. 

On the 8th of May, 1854, Sir Edward Belcher, when 
in search of Sir John Franklin, abandoned one of his 
ships, the Resolute, on Beechy Island, in Barrow's 
Straits, about latitude 75° N". and longitude 95° W. from 



* This is not to be confounded with the fur seal (Callorhinus 
ursinus) of Behring Sea. 



14 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

Greenwich. Upon leaving the ship everything was put 
in order, the rudder was taken on board, and " every 
movable packed away below or securely lashed on deck.'' 
A year and four months later, on the 10th of September, 
1855, the Kesolute was sighted by Captain Buddington 
in the ice pack off Cape Mercy, near the mouth of Cum- 
berland Sound, in latitude 67° N., having drifted through 
Lancaster Sound and down Baffin Bay, a distance of 
eleven hundred miles, in the sixteen months which had 
elapsed since its abandonment. The ship was still in 
seaworthy condition, so that a crew was put upon it 
which brought it safely to New London, Conn. Appro- 
priately, Congress rewarded the captain and his crew 
with a grant of forty thousand dollars, and had the ship 
repaired and sent to the English Government as a token 
of national good feeling. 

The second experience in the Labrador ice current 
upon which we pause is a chapter from McClintock's 
narrative of the discovery of the fate of Sir John 
Franklin. McClintock and his party had sailed on 
July 1, 1857, from Aberdeen, Scotland, in the Fox, a 
screw yacht of one hundred and seventy-seven tons bur- 
den. On the 17th of August the vessel became encum- 
bered in the ice pack of Melville Bay, and, being un- 
able to extricate themselves, the party was obliged to 
await the rigours of an arctic winter amid such unpro- 
pitious surroundings. At first the drift was westward, 
and they were so near the land that they could see it all 
around Melville Bay from Cape Walker to Cape York. 
In fourteen days they had drifted forty miles. On the 
16th of September they were within twenty-five miles 
of Cape York, and within twelve or fifteen miles of open 
water in that direction ; but it was too late to move. 
New ice was forming about them, and they were com- 



THE ICE OP THE LABRADOR CURRENT. 15 

pelled to prepare to winter in the ice pack. On the 
26th of September, " Snowy Peak, to the north of Mel- 
ville Bay and ninety miles distant, was still in view." 
The winter passed with little to break the dull monoto- 
ny except an occasional storm or the appearance, now 
and then, of a polar bear on the floe. During December 
they drifted sixty-seven miles directly down Baffin Bay 
and were in latitude 74°. On January 17th they were 
within one hundred and fifteen miles of Upernivik, 
having drifted sixty miles during the first half of the 
month. 

On the 7th of March they were so far south and east 
that the highlands of Disco were visible ninety miles 
away. On the 26th and 27th of March they drifted 
thirty-nine miles. On the 26th of April the ice of 
the pack had become so much loosened that the Fox was 
able to free herself from her long imprisonment. The log 
reads : " During our two hundred and forty-two days in 
the pack ice of Baffin Bay and Davis Strait we were 
drifted 1,194 miles geographical, or 1,385 statute miles. 
It is the longest drift I know of, and our winter, as a 
whole, may be considered as having been mild but very 
windy" (p. 99). 

Instead of going home after this experience, McClin- 
tock and his crew sailed to Holsteinborg, on the coast of 
Greenland, and, having repaired their vessel, set out 
anew upon their errand and were successful both in 
finding the last relics of Sir John Franklin and in defi- 
nitely determining the fate of his expedition. The Fox 
is still (1894) doing good service in Greenland waters, 
being emplo}^ed at Ivigtut in towing barges for the Cryo- 
lite Mining Company. 

The third adventure surpasses all others in dramatic 
interest. Captain Hall, with a well-equipped party upon 
3 



16 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

the Polaris, had sailed from New London, Conn., July 
3, 1871, upon an arctic exploring expedition. On Au- 
gust 30th he reached 82° 29', his most northern point, 
where he began to drift south. Steaming out of the 
pack and finding a harbour on September 3d, Hall soon 
after made an extensive sledge journey, from which he 
returned only to die on the 21st of October, when the 
command fell upon Captain Buddington, whose name 
has already been mentioned in connection with the 
sighting of the Resolute. The winter and the following 
summer were spent by the crew in these high latitudes 
in prosecuting the objects of the expedition ; but about 
the middle of September, 1872, the ship became fastened 
in the ice pack, in latitude 79° 34'. On the 15th of 
October the ship was so badly damaged and in such im- 
minent peril that provisions and stores .were thrown out 
upon the ice, where a portion of the party also took 
refuge. At half past nine in the evening the ice 
cracked so as to liberate the ship and loosen its ice- 
anchors, and in the darkness of a stormy night the two 
parties were separated. 

On the floe were nineteen persons — " Captain Tyson, 
Mr. Meyer, the meteorologist, the steward, the cook, six 
seamen, and the Eskimos Joe and Hans, with their 
wives and children, including a baby born to Hans 
August 12th, and then christened Charles Polaris." 
Several of the floe party passed the dark hours of the 
first night on separate pieces of ice which had been 
broken off from the main floe, but they were all brought 
together upon the following day. Tyson naturally took 
command of the party, and proved himself adequate to 
the situation. The separation occurred in latitude 78° 
1ST., in the entrance to Smith Sound, not far from Little- 
ton Island. 



THE ICE OF THE LABRADOR CURRENT. if 

The experiences of the party are told in various 
diaries kept by different members, and in answer to 
questions of the Congressional Committee which inves- 
tigated the conduct of the expedition, all of which will 
be found in full in the reports of the Secretary of the 
Navy and Postmaster- General, First Session, Forty- third 
Congress, 18 73-' 74. It is necessary to give only the brief- 
est summary of the events, but even that is stranger and 
more interesting than fiction. 

After gathering together upon one floe, the party 
took stock of their possessions and found themselves 
with " two boats, some clothes-bags and muskox skins, 
fourteen cans of pemmican, fourteen hams, some canned 
meat, a small bag of chocolate, the tent built on the floe 
previously, and twelve bags of hard bread therein ; be- 
sides an 'A' tent, instruments, chronometer, etc." The 
ice was so broken and unsteady that a continual removal 
of stores was necessary. All worked hard until about 
twelve o'clock at night, and then, exhausted, lay down 
to rest amid drifting snow and a fearful tempest. All 
the papers and records were lost. 

Next morning, October 16th, they found themselves 
wedged in between an iceberg and land which they 
could not reach. During the day the ship was seen 
under full steam, but they were unable to communicate 
with her, and were compelled to resign themselves to 
their fate upon the ice. Through the following day the 
gale continued, and the ice kept breaking off upon 
the edges, so that only a small piece was left them. 
The provisions were estimated to be sufficient to last 
four months, at the rate of three quarters of a pound per 
day to a man. They had no fuel for fire, except as the 
two Eskimos might be fortunate enough to kill seals to 
furnish them with blubber for a lamp. On October 22d 



18 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

three snow huts were built, and three seals had been shot, 
enabling them to make soup over a lamp. On the 23d, 
a missing boat, and a plank house from which they had 
been separated by the storm, were discovered. The next 
few days were occupied in securing the boat and the 
house and the provisions that were in it. Among the 
additions to their party at this time were two dogs that 
had been separated from them on other floes. 

On November 3d they were found to be actually 
adrift, so that all hope of getting back to the Polaris 
was given up, and they settled down to await their fate. 
On the 6th they saw still more clearly that they were 
drifting south and west. On that day the Eskimos 
caught a seal, upon whose uncooked meat they made a 
full meal. On the 10th they were drifting rapidly, and 
passed the Carey Islands, but the Eskimos had had no 
success in hunting. On November 21st two seals were 
caught, and permanent snow huts were erected. No- 
vember 22d was calm and clear, and brought them one 
seal. The floe then was surrounded with more or less 
water. On the 23d another seal was shot. Thanksgiv- 
ing Day, November 28th, witnessed no extension to 
their larder, but was celebrated by a slight change in 
diet. 

December passed with very little to break the monot- 
ony, except the shifting of the thermometer up and 
down the scale between —26° and 0, accompanied with 
changes in the wind and alternations in the cloudiness of 
the skies and in the brilliancy of the auroral displays. 
On December 21st it was light enough to read print at 
ten o'clock in the morning. On December 25th they 
had a Christmas dinner of two biscuits, half a pound 
of ham, and a cup of blood soup each. Little game was 
shot during this month. 



THE ICE OF THE LABRADOR CURRENT. 19 

January passed also with little variation in experi- 
ences, except that the thermometer ranged from 10° to 
15° lower than in the previous months, reaching by the 
13th —40°. Gales and snowdrifts were also increasing 
incidents of their life, while the Eskimos shot only an 
occasional seal, which barely helped them to eke out 
their scanty supply of fuel and keep from freezing. On 
the 20th they were in latitude 70° N. 

February passed with slightly higher temperature 
but an increased amount of stormy and cloudy weather. 
On February 26th the allowance of food was reduced to 
seven ounces per day. 

March was inaugurated by a temperature of —34° 
and the shooting of sixty-five dovekies. These little 
birds formed an important part of their additions to the 
larder during the month. From March 9th to the 12th 
the floe cracked badly, and they held themselves in 
readiness to take to their boats in case of disaster ; but 
though the floe was completely broken up, the piece of 
ice they were on was left intact. On the 27th a bear 
was killed, and on the 31st four seals. They had then 
reached latitude 59° 41'. 

On April 1st they left their snow encampment and 
proceeded to the southwest in their boat. Seals were 
plenty, and they were well supplied with provisions, but 
the inconvenience of hauling the boat upon the ice floe 
was great, and hazards of every sort increased. On 
April 5th a great gale set in from the northeast, break- 
ing off pieces of the ice upon which they had taken 
refuge. This gale continued until the 9th, when a 
heavy sea was breaking over them, and they were com- 
pelled to stand by the boat until twelve o'clock to keep 
it from washing off, the children being in the boat. 
With varying experiences between life and death, they 



20 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

pressed onward until the 19th of April, when they were 
obliged to remain by their boat on a piece of ice dur- 
ing the entire night, while the sea washed over them, 
and fragments of ice were pelting at their feet. 

Thus they kept on until the 29th of April, when at 
daylight they sighted a steamer five miles off. Launch- 
ing their boat amid the floating ice, they made for her, 
but soon got fast and could go no farther. Landing upon 
a piece of ice, they hoisted their colours from an elevated 
place, fired their rifles and pistols, and heard what they 
supposed were return shots from the steamer. But in 
the afternoon the steamer turned away from them. It 
seems that the signals of the wrecked party had not 
reached the steamer. The firing which they had heard 
was from the seal hunters out upon the ice. But at five 
o'clock on the morning of April 30th, when the fog 
cleared away, it disclosed another steamer near by them. 
This proved to be the Tigress, of St. John's, under com- 
mand of Captain Bartlett, who rescued them in latitude 
53° 35' N. 

After remaining five days to finish their catch of 
seal, the Tigress turned to the southwest, and reached 
the harbour of St. John's on the 12th of May. The 
party had been one hundred and ninety-seven days upon 
the ice, and had floated southward through 24° of lati- 
tude, a direct distance of about 1,700 miles. This is at 
the rate of nearly nine miles a day. 

But those upon the ice had fared better than those 
who remained upon the Polaris, for they reached home 
early enough in the season to report the disaster and 
start a relief party to the far north in search of the ship. 

The Tigress was chartered for this purpose, and beat 
around all summer in Davis Strait and Baffin Bay, only 
to find that the Polaris had been abandoned, and that 



THE ICE OP THE LABRADOR CURRENT. 21 

the crew had escaped and been taken on board the 
Ravenscraig, a Dundee whaler which had ventured to 
the vicinity of Cape York. From this, after a few days, 
they were transferred to the companion vessels Arctic 
and Intrepid, which were ready to return to Scotland. 
The company reached New York by the steamer City of 
Antwerp on the 4th of October, about five months later 
than the other party. Charles Polaris, the Eskimo baby 
on the ice floe, is still an honored resident of Greenland ; 
and one of the sailors of the party offered himself for 
service on the Miranda last summer as she was about to 
sail from St. John's for the far north. 

Few things in all the world are more impressive 
than this majestic belt of ice moving down the Labrador 
current. We may safely estimate that at the beginning 
of summer it is one hundred miles wide and one thou- 
sand miles long. Upon it, as already said, hundreds of 
thousands of seals take refuge to rear their young, 
while in their train follow the arctic bear and fox and 
innumerable flocks of birds, all dependent ultimately 
upon the food which the instincts of the seal enable him 
to secure from the sea. 

Large as is the supply, however, the number of hunt- 
ers has so multiplied, and their weapons have so in- 
creased in destructiveness, that they are fast killing the 
goose that lays the golden egg. At the best, the seal 
would be waging, against such odds, a losing warfare 
for life. But especially is this the case wiien the time 
of capture involves the killing of the mother with her 
young. Already the dependence of these hardy fisher- 
men is rapidly failing, and the late financial collapse of 
Newfoundland is partially due to the poor success of her 
sealers in recent years. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE COAST OF LABRADOR. 

After our collision with the iceberg in the Strait of 
Belle Isle it was deemed prudent to put into the nearest 
port for temporary repairs. We accordingly turned 
northwestward to Cape Charles Harbour, on the ex- 
treme southeastern coast of Labrador, about fifteen miles 
distant. Our detention here, together with visits later 
to Henley Harbour, in the Strait of Belle Isle, and to 
the Punch Bowl, near Hamilton Inlet, and several days 
of lazy sailing in sight of the shore, gave us opportunity 
to see enough of the country to appreciate the broader 
facts which have been collected and placed on record 
by others. 

Territorially, Labrador is a part of Cauacla; but so 
many of the inhabitants are from Newfoundland, and 
are in Labrador for temporary purposes, that the gov- 
ernment of the eastern shore is turned over to the 
doughty little island province, which so far has refused 
to join the Dominion. In Labrador, as in Newfound- 
land, the white population is limited to the seashore, 
and is wholly devoted to fishing. Only about five thou- 
sand can be reckoned as permanent residents. These, 
in little hamlets, are scattered along the coast for sev- 
eral hundred miles, in conditions of life which seem to 
the outsider forbidding enough, but which are accept- 

23 



24 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

ed without complaint by the inhabitants themselves. 
Everywhere the aspect of the coast is barren in the 




Fig. 6.- Flowing outline of the Labrador coast, with an unusually sym- 
metrical berg in the foreground, about one hundred feet high, and 
two miles from shore. 



extreme. No timber is in sight as one sails along 
the shore, and in the interior what little there is 
in the river valleys has small commercial value. 
Snow lingers throughout the entire summer in pro- 
tected places, even down to the water's edge, while 
a long, even line of water-washed rocks bears endur- 
ing testimony to the great height and violence of the 
waves which roll in from the Atlantic during stormy 
weather. 

The scanty permanent population of eastern Labra- 
dor is re-enforced during the summer by twenty-five 
thousand or thirty thousand fishermen from Newfound- 
land. For the most part these come in families ; the 
father (and sometimes the mother) and the older chil- 
dren, both boys and girls, managing to combine pleasure 
with profit, and to make the fishing season a kind of 
summer vacation. The house occupied is rude and has 
scanty furniture, yet is not much less comfortable than 



THE COAST OF LABRADOR. 25 

one finds at many of the " Chautauqua assemblies " in 
the United States. Still, everything shows that the 
main purpose is business, and not pleasure. The girls 
do the cooking and keep the house, being ready, how- 
ever, to devote several hours of the day to assist in 
cleaning the fish which the male members of the family 
briug ashore. 

The Government of Newfoundland and the religious 
and charitable organizations, both of the province and 
of the mother country, look as well as they can after the 
interests of this temporary population. A line of mail 
steamers is maintained, running once in two or three 




Fig. 7.— Storehouse at Cape Charles Harbour, with a seal skin stretched 
out to dry. Chapel on the hill. 

weeks from St. John's as far up the coast as the ice will 
permit. Temporary post-offices are established at every 
landing place, but one will not always find them sup- 
plied with postage stamps. Usually he will pay his 



26 



GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 



postage, and trust the fisherman's daughter to purchase 
the stamps when the steamer comes along. In the 
winter season, when all the inlets and bays are frozen 




Fis. 8.— Winter quarters in Labrador. 



over and the population has shrunk to its minimum 
number, the mail is carried at infrequent intervals on 
dog sledges, and, strange as it may seem, is distributed 
from house to house. This, however, is not so difficult 
as might be supposed, since nearly everybody lives either 
along the shore or a short distance back in temporary 
houses made in the timber. 

The isolation of many of these families is calculated 
to touch the sympathies of the transient visitor. It is 
not unusual to meet grown-up young people who have 
never been ten miles away from the little settlement to 
which they are anchored on these barren shores. Yet 



THE COAST OF LABRADOR. 27 

upon investigation the seclusion is not so great as it 
seems. Trading vessels frequently call during the sum- 
mer season, not only from the provinces but from all 
parts of Europe. From five hundred to six hundred 
vessels annually reach the port of Hopedale. In 1879 
eight hundred vessels visited it, seventy- two lying in the 
harbour at one time. Packard reports that at Blanc 
Sablon, in Domino Harbour, there were, on the 20th of 
July, 1864, forty vessels awaiting the opportunity to fish 
as soon as the ice should clear away. As many as 
twelve hundred vessels sometimes visit the coast during 
a single season, and the exports of fish amount to two 
or three million dollars' worth annually. 




b_ 



Fig. 9.— Little chapel between the seas, Cape Charles Harbour. 

On conspicuous points are built little chapels, where 
religious services are held regularly by laymen, and 
occasionally by a clergyman, who is provided with a 
special boat to make his long tours. Adjoining the 



28 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

chapel is usually a flagstaff up which a signal is run to 
uotify the scattered population of the advent of the 
welcome missionary. At Battle Harbour is maintained 



Fig. 10.— Battle Harbour, the capital of Labrador. 

a hospital to which the unfortunate fishermen have 
ready access by means of the frequent passage of vessels 
of various kinds up and down the coast. There is, to be 
sure, no telegraphic communication with the outside 
world, and the newspapers received are a long way 
behind date; yet interest in contemporary affairs is 
well maintained, and the political questions agitating 
Europe and America are everywhere intelligently dis- 
cussed. 

In returning from Greenland, on the 28th of August, 
five days after we had abandoned the Miranda amid the 
mists and darkness of Davis Strait, the Rigel sighted 
the coast of Labrador just south of Hamilton Inlet, 
about latitude 54°. The shortness of our supply of 
water and the appearance of an approaching storm led 
us to put into the first convenient harbour. 

\ 



THE COAST OF LABRADOR. 29 

Here, as everywhere in the southeastern part of 
Labrador, the outlines upon the horizon were of the 
gently flowing and graceful order, which we have 
already remarked in Newfoundland, and which, as we 
shall see later, is in such striking contrast to the sky 
lines of the west Greenland coast. There were nowhere 
any sharp mountain peaks in sight, and even the nu- 
merous islands bordering the coast presented the same 
subdued aspect, indicating, as some would contend, re- 
cent subjection to the horizontal erosive agencies con- 
nected with a vast ice movement as distinguished from 
the vertical action of water erosion. This became the 
more evident upon reaching the shore and comparing 
the rocks with those in Greenland, for the geological 
formations are nearly identical upon the two sides of 
Davis Strait, showing that the diversity in contour must 
be attributable to the difference in the agencies which 
have sculptured the mountains into shape. But more 
of this hereafter. 

Upon reaching the vicinity of the bordering islands 
we came in sight of numerous small boats which were 
out for their daily catch of fish. A schooner also hove 
in sight, and bore down near enough to exchange greet- 
ings and to tell us where we were. The surprise of the 
captain and crew of the trading vessel at the spectacle 
presented when our company of ninety-one persons 
lined up on the deck of the Rigel, filling her from stem 
to stern, is easier imagined than expressed. Indeed, the 
attempts at expression upon the part of the captain were 
of a character which it would hardly be permissible to 
put on record in a printed volume. But we learned 
from him that we were in latitude 53° 20', in the vi- 
cinity of the Punch Bowl, one of the snuggest of all the 
island harbours on the coast. When the small fishing 



30 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

boats saw that we wished a pilot a lively race began, to 
see which should reach us first and secure the coveted 
prize. 

But after the bargain was made and the pilot was on 
board, the other boats gathered around us to learn our 
story and to replenish our depleted larder with fish just 
taken from the water. Naturally enough, also, the fish- 
ermen had wants of their own which we could supply. 
One poor fellow had become nearly blind, and there was 
no medical assistance within reach. He was brought by 
his friends to get the advice of the skilful physicians 
whom we had on board. Another came in great anxiety 
for a friend who had sprained his ankle and was in 
much need of some alcohol with which to bathe it. Tak- 
ing compassion on him, I divided with him my ample 
supply of Pond's extract; but still he begged for the 
alcohol, and was so disappointed in not obtaining it that 
he forgot to be thankful for what he did receive. 

At length, after winding around through a tortuous 
channel among the islands, we came to the entrance of 
the harbour, which goes by the name of Victoria Tickle 
— " tickle " being a peculiar term applied iu Labrador 
to many narrow and rather shallow passages between 
the broader areas of water. 

The Punch Bowl is well named, being a circular 
body of water about a mile in diameter, with depth 
enough to float the largest vessels, and good anchoring 
ground. The low graceful hills surrounding it rise in 
places to a height of three hundred or four hundred 
feet, and are entirely without forests or trees. Abundant 
vegetation, however, covers the depressions where soil has 
accumulated. Just at this time the so-called "baked 
apple," or cloud -berry, was ripe, and was very enticing 
both in its colour and its flavour. Aside from the 



THE COAST OF LABRADOR. 31 

whortleberries, this is almost the only edible fruit that 
grows in Labrador. It is of a purplish colour, in shape 
something like a small blackberry, and tastes more like 
a half-decayed than like a well-baked apple. 

The day was spent by the crew in replenishing our 
stores of fresh water, which had been so short that for a 
week we had been compelled to forego the pleasure of a 
fresh-water bath even for our faces. By the passengers 
the day was spent in relaxing their limbs on shore, in 
recovering from seasickness, and in wandering over the 
lowlands and bogs in search of botanical specimens, and 
over the hills to learn the geology of the region. To the 
glacialist there was the same occasion for surprise here 
which had impressed us in the vicinity of St. Charles 
Harbour, in the fact that there were no boulders upon 
the hills, but that they had everywhere been swept bare 
and clean. Up to a height of about one hundred and 
eighty feet, however, there were irregularly formed ter- 
races containing many sub-angular boulders a foot or 
two in diameter, witnessing to so much depression at 
least of the land below sea level in postglacial times. 
The outlook, in the light of the setting sun, from the 
highest hill back of the harbour was most beautiful and 
instructive. The island is separated by numerous silver 
threads of water from other islands between it and the 
shore— all together presenting the same flowing outline 
upon the horizon as that upon which we have already 
remarked, and merging into the scenery of the coast so 
gradually that it all seems to be one. 

There is no permanent settlement at the Punch Bowl, 
but during the summer it is a favourable centre for 
the meeting of the fishermen and the vessel owners who 
are in quest of cargoes. Codfish were everywhere. The 
smooth granite rocks were covered far and wide with 
4 



32 



GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 



them spread out to dry. All the slight elevations were 
capped with circular piles of fish already dried and 
awaiting shipment, while long rows of hogsheads were 
full of the fermenting livers, from which cod-liver oil 
with all its medical virtues is extracted. 

Two vessels were lying at the dock awaiting their 
cargoes while we were there. Both were English ships 




Fig. 11.— A house at the Punch Bowl, with the chapel on the hill. 



with orders to sail with their freight to different ports of 
the Mediterranean — the one to Spain and the other to 
southern Italy — thus illustrating how the pious observ- 
ances of one class of people may furnish occupation for 
another who are as far separated from them in their 
religious beliefs as they are in space. In this case the 
sturdy Protestant of Newfoundland is glad enough of 



THE COAST OF LABRADOR. 33 

the market provided for his wares by the fasts enjoined 
in distant places by the much-berated Catholic Church. 

The trader at the Punch Bowl was a citizen of 
Newfoundland who for many years had spent his sum- 
mers here. The storehouse, one or two log houses, and 
a small chapel constituted the settlement, but, to our 
surprise, everything had a holiday aspect as we sailed to 
our place of anchorage. Flags were flying and national 
colours were displayed as if it were the Queen's birthday. 
Coming as we did out of the darkness of Greenland, we 
should have been disturbed at these signs in the harbour 
of an English colony if there had been any impending 
trouble between our own and the mother country when 
we left home. But as the Chicago insurrection was at 
its height at that time, we could think of no news that 
should be good to them that should not also be good to 
us. So we took courage and hastened to inquire the 
cause of the rejoicing, when we learned that there was a 
wedding in progress. The storekeeper's daughter was 
married that day. The wedding, however, was not at 
the Punch Bowl, but in St. John's, six hundred miles 
away; upon which we concluded that the people in 
whom sentiment is so keenly alive are able to take care 
of themselves, and that they well may command our re- 
spect rather than elicit our sympathies. With our bless- 
ings on the far-off bride and groom, we sailed out again 
through the " tickle " (or rather were towed out by our 
dories, for there was no wind) on the following morn- 
ing, and for the next three days, amid recurring calms, 
leisurely surveyed the coast that stretched to the south 
of us as far as the Strait of Belle Isle. 

The geology of Labrador is comparatively simple. 
The prevalent rock is Laurentian gneiss, which in the 
southern part rises to a height of about two thousand 



3J: GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

feet at a distance of one hundred or two hundred miles 
from the coast. The general aspect of the interior is 
reported to be that of a gently undulating plateau 
abounding in shallow lakes connected by rather slug- 
gish streams. To the north the plateau narrows and 
rises, until, seventy miles south of Cape Chidley, it is 
crowned with mountains which attain, according to 
Dr. Eobert Bell, of the Canadian Geological Survey, a 
height of six thousand feet. The watershed runs nearly 
parallel with the Atlantic coast for a distance of be- 
tween five hundred and six hundred miles. Scarcely any- 
thing is known about the interior, as it is exceedingly 
difficult of access, and there is little to attract the ordi- 
nary explorer. In general, the higher elevations appear 
as rounded rather than sharp peaks, indicating recent 
erosion by glacial agencies. 

Prof. A. S. Packard cites* observations by Mr. Lie- 
ber which show that the northern mountains of Labra- 
dor, in the vicinity of Cape Chidley, have been rounded 
and moulded by glaciation to the height of about two 
thousand feet above the sea, while the higher portions of 
the mountains are covered with angular blocks of local 
origin which have been broken off by the frost and ice 
and moved only a little way from their native ledges. 
Evidently the mountain heights rose above the sur- 
face of this portion of the continental ice sheet in the 
Glacial period; otherwise all such loose blocks would 
have been inevitably borne away and deposited over 
the outer margin of the glaciated region. Excepting 
this highest part of Labrador, lying between Ungava 
Bay and the Atlantic coast, where the mountain tops 

* Memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. i, 
pp. 219-222 ; The Labrador Coast, 1891, pp. 293-296, 301. 



THE COAST OF LABRADOR. 35 

were nunataks * during the maximum stage of glacia- 
tion, all the Labrador plateau and coast appear to have 
been then enveloped in ice. 

Near the mouth of Hamilton Inlet there is an exten- 
sive outcrop of light-coloured gneiss of later age than 
that which constitutes the main portion of the interior. 
According to Packard, this occupies " a depression of the 
Laurentian rocks about one hundred and twenty-five 
miles long and probably twenty-five miles broad, stretch- 
ing along the coast between Domino Harbour and Cape 
Webuc." f This rock is light coloured, only slightly 
schistose, and consists largely of white, granular, vitreous 
quartz, mingled with a small amount of hornblende and 
mica, but without feldspar. 

This so-called Domino gneiss is accompanied with 
a considerable amount of coarse-grained trap which has 
overflowed upon it in numerous dikes. The trap rock, 
being of harder texture than the gneiss, presents many 
prominences of peculiar shape, of which Tub Island 
is one, its name being descriptive of its appearance. 
Cape North is a lofty headland of this trap with Domino 
gneiss underlying it. An island called Black and White, 
on the north side of Hamilton Inlet, consists of trap and 
gneiss in about equal proportions, whose colours give 
good warrant for the name. 

One of the most remarkable remnants of these trap 
overflows is at Henley Harbour, in Chateau Bay, near 
the southeast corner of Labrador ; but the ejected mat- 
ter there is of a finer texture than that farther north. 
The most conspicuous remnant at this place is known as 

* The Greenland name for mountain peaks which project 
above the surface of a glacier, 
f The Labrador Coast, p. 286. 



36 



GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 



the Devil's Dining Table, and consists of a nearly cir- 
cular mass of basalt, having a distinct columnar struc- 
ture like that of the Giant's Causeway in Ireland. Its 
surface is two hundred and fifty feet above the sea, and it 
rests upon the upturned edges of the older Laurentian 
gneiss, showing that it is of later age. The table con- 
sists of two distinct layers of doleritic basalt, each about 
twenty-five feet in thickness. The five-sided columns 




Fig. 12.— The Devil's Dining Table, Henley Harbour, Labrador. 



into which it is divided are about two feet in diameter. 
The flat top of the table is about five hundred feet across, 
and in summer is carpeted with the bushes of the curlew 
berry. Two or three large granite boulders are its sole 
reminders of the Glacial period. 

West of Henley Harbour there is a considerable de- 
velopment of Cambrian rocks consisting of red and gray 



THE COAST OF LABRADOR. 37 

sandstones. These are nearly horizontal, and are very 
distinctly terraced. 

The glacial phenomena of Labrador all indicate that 
it has been a centre from which the ice has moved out- 
ward in all directions. So far as the glacial strias have 
been observed upon the eastern shore they point toward 
the Atlantic Ocean and Davis Strait. Hamilton Inlet 
was filled, with an enormous glacier forty miles wide at 
its mouth, and extending an unknown distance into the 
area now occupied by water. The glacial striae are dis- 
tinct upon each side of the mouth of the inlet. On the 
southern coast of Labrador the eminences show that the 
ice movement was from the north, since their sloping or 
" stoss " side is in that direction ; but upon the eastern 
coast the sloping sides are to the west and the abrupt 
sides to the east. In the northwestern part of Labrador 
the ice moved westward into Hudson Bay, from which, 
by a circuitous route, it flowed outward in a majestic 
glacier which filled Hudson Strait from side to side, be- 
ing nearly one hundred miles in width. 

The fullest information concerning the interior of 
Labrador is furnished by the report of an expedition of 
the Canadian Geological Survey, conducted by Mr. A. 
P. Low, in the years 1893 and 1894. This party en- 
tered the peninsula from the west by way of the Sague- 
nay River, travelling in a nearly straight line to Ungava 
Bay, a distance of eleven hundred miles. Then, coming 
around by boat to Hamilton Inlet, they ascended. Ham- 
ilton River to Grand Falls, and from that point explored 
the watershed, from which streams flow in every direc- 
tion. The party came out by a southerly route, reach- 
ing the St. Lawrence opposite Anticosti Island. The 
valley of Hamilton River is described by them as " well 
wooded with white, black, and balsam spruce, larch, 



38 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

balsam poplar, and white birch, much of the timber be- 
ing sufficiently large to cut for commercial purposes." * 

Lake Winokapau, an expansion of the river, fifty or 
sixty miles below the Grand Falls, " is forty miles long, 
and averages a mile and a half in width. . . . The waters 
are deep to the base of the high rocky cliffs that bound 
the valley on both sides. Soundings made in the centre 
gave four hundred and sixteen feet. Toward its upper 
end the sand brought down by the river has greatly 
decreased the depth, and a number of low islands and 
shoals obstruct navigation." f 

In the upper part of Hamilton River valley " exten- 
sive fires during recent summers have burnt almost the 
whole of the timber in the valley and on the surround- 
ing table-land. . . . The small patches remaining show 
that the trees in the valley were of fair size, while the 
table-land is covered only with small black spruce and 
larch." J 

The Grand Falls, whose existence was barely known 
before, were brought prominently to notice in 1892 by a 
visit of Messrs. Bryant and Kenaston, and two years 
later by this Canadian exploring party. Mr. Low's de- 
scription is as follows : Leaving " a small lake expan- 
sion, and narrowing to less than two hundred yards in 
width, the river falls two hundred feet in less than four 
miles, rushing along in a continuous heavy rapid. In 
the last quarter of a mile it narrows to ..less than one 
hundred yards, as it sweeps downward with heavy 
waves over a number of rocky ledges, preparatory to its 
plunge of three hundred feet, as the Grand Falls, into a 

* Annual Report of the Canadian Geological Survey, Part A, 
vol. vii, p. 71. 

f Ibid. % Ibid - 



THE COAST OF LABRADOR'. 39 

circular basin about two hundred yards wide at the head 
of the canon below. From this basin it passes out by a 
channel less than fifty feet wide, at right angles to the 
falls, and thus pent up in this narrow channel it rushes 
on in a zigzag course from five hundred to seven hun- 
dred feet below the general level, until it issues into the 
main valley below. The distance in a straight line from 
the falls to the mouth of the canon is not much over 
five miles ; but, owing to the crooked nature of the 
canon, the river, with a fall of over three hundred feet, 
probably flows more than twice that distance before it 
reaches the main valley." * 

" Above the Grand Falls the character of the river 
changes completely, and instead of flowing steadily in a 
deep, well-defined valley, it here runs almost on a level 
with the surrouuding country without any valley proper, 
but spread out into lake expansions and numerous chan- 
nels separated by large islands, so as to occupy all the 
lower lands of a wide tract of country through which it 
flows. . . . The country surrounding the river is rolling, 
with rounded hills seldom rising more than three hun- 
dred feet above the general surface. Between the hills 
are wide valleys occupied by lakes or swampy land. 
The trees are small, and black spruce predominates, 
with larch, balsam, and white spruce, and a few wdiite 
birch." f 

" All the lakes and rivers of the interior were found 
well stocked with fish, those of the eastern watershed 
especially so. During the summer of 1894 the party 
lived almost exclusively on fish caught in nets or with 



* Annual Report of the Canadian Geological Survey, Part A, 
vol. vii, p. 72. 
f Ibid., p. 73. 



40 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

lines. The net was nightly set at random, and never 
failed to give a supply in the morning. Lake trout, 
often of large size, brook trout up to seven pounds' 
weight, large whitefish and pike, landlocked salmon, 
and two kinds of suckers, were all taken almost every- 
where." 

" The most important geological information obtained 
is the discovery of a great and hitherto unknown area of 
Cambrian rocks, extending north-northwest from north 
latitude 53° to beyond the west side of Ungava Bay. 
These rocks are made up of a great thickness of con- 
glomerates, sandstones, slates, shales, and limestones, to- 
gether with intrusive igneous rocks. Their chief eco- 
nomic value is due to the immense amount of bedded 
iron ore found along with them. The ores are chiefly 
specular and red haematite, together with beds of siderite 
or carbonate of iron. Thick beds of fine ore associated 
with jasper were met with in many places on both the 
Ungava and Hamilton Rivers, and the amount seen 
runs up into millions of tons. Owing to their distances 
from the seaboard these ores at present are of little value, 
but the time may come when they will add greatly to 
the wealth of the country. 

" Frequent observations on the direction of the gla- 
cial striae show that the ice during the glacial period 
flowed off in all directions from a central area south of 
Lake Kaniapiskau and between the headwaters of the 
Hamilton and East Main Eivers. Along the upper part 
of the East Main River the ice moved nearly due west, 
and it also flowed in that direction near Nichicun Lake. 
The striation is very indistinct, and the evidence of mo- 
tion of the ice mass is not definite from here to Lake 
Kaniapiskau. This portion of the country is covered by 
immense quantities of subangular blocks and boulders of 



THE COAST OF LABRADOR. 41 

local rocks, often perched on the very summits of the 
rocky hills, and not uncommonly found resting on other 
blocks beneath, in such a position that the least move- 
ment would displace them. 

" Erratics are very rare, and everything points to but 
a slight amount of movement of ice in this vicinity. At 
Lake Kaniapiskau the direction of the strise shows the 
ice flow to have been toward north 60° east, while down 
the Ungava River it was more nearly north, correspond- 
ing with the general slope of the country. In the valley 
of the Hamilton River only the south side is glaciated, 
and the direction of the striaa follows that of the axis of 
the valley. On the table-land above the Grand Falls 
the direction of the striae is very persistent, being con- 
stant over hill and valley, with a general direction of 
southeast. 

" Near Lake Petitsikapau the direction quickly 
changes to north 50° east, apparently due to a change in 
the general slope. About Lake Michikamau the general 
direction is nearly due east. Passing southward to the 
Romaine River, and along it, the direction of the ice 
movement varies from east-southeast to southeast. On 
the St. John River the stria? are irregular, and mostly 
follow the valley. 

" A marked feature of the interior is the sharp ridges 
of drift that lie parallel to the direction of the strias. 
These ridges are chiefly composed of fine material, with 
well-rounded small boulders, of which a large percentage 
are far travelled. Where cut by the streams, these ridges 
sometimes show indistinct signs of stratification and may 
be called eskers. In detail their contour is most irregu- 
lar, forming a perfect network of sharp ridges joining- 
one another from all directions, with the material lying 
at very high angles impossible to obtain under water. 



42 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

They greatly resemble moraines formed by the melting 
of drift-laden ice at rest, and are indiscriminately scat- 
tered over the country. Terraces were observed on the 
sides of the hills along both branches of the Hamilton 
River. These terraces rise to over one hundred feet 
above the present water level, and are so placed that they 
could only be formed along the shore of a lake or lakes 
formed by ice barriers. 

"Almost continuous terraces were traced along the 
sides of the deep valleys of the Hamilton and Ungava 
Rivers from their mouths for over two hundred miles 
inland. The post-glacial elevation on the Atlantic coast 
of Labrador, as shown from terraces and raised beaches, 
was not over two hundred feet at Hamilton Inlet, and 
gradually decreases northward. 

" The depth of Lake Winokapau — four hundred and 
sixteen feet — would indicate that the elevation of the land 
in preglacial times was much greater than at present, and 
that the valley of the Hamilton River has since been 
tilled up with glacial drift, out of which the river is 
again cutting a channel ; but owing to the less elevated 
state of the land it will probably not again reach the 
depth that it had previous to the glacial period." * 

The inner Labrador banks are supposed by Hind to 
be glacial moraines. These are situated about fifteen 
miles out from the islands which border the shore, and 
are covered by from one hundred and twenty to two 
hundred and forty feet of water. These banks are spe- 
cially noticeable opposite the fiords and bays through 
which the flow of the ice was naturally concentrated. 



* Annual Report of the Canadian Geological Survey, Part A, 
vol. vii, pp. 78-80. 



THE COAST OF LABRADOR: 43 

Icebergs are constantly stranded upon these shoals, form- 
ing long lines and large groups. The shoals are also the 
haunts of fish, which afford sustenance to the people. 

North of Hamilton Inlet the coast is bordered by in- 
numerable islands, large and small, while to the south 
there are very few. Prof. Hind has introduced an in- 
teresting and plausible theory to account for this strik- 
ing phenomenon. Beginning a little way south of 
Hamilton Inlet, the coast line to the north trends rapid- 
ly westward, while south of that point for one hundred 
miles the direction is nearly that of the meridian. Prof. 
Hind supposes that the Labrador current, with its con- 
stant throng of icebergs and ice floes, and its steady 
westward tendency, produced by the motion of the earth, 
has worn away the islands off the southeast coast, and 
bevelled off the edge of the shore itself, while to the 
north, where the coast trends northwesterly, the same 
forces have produced a sort of eddy in which the ice is 
stranded and compelled to unload its burdens of drift, 
thus augmenting the debris which forms the shoals 
characteristic of the region. If this be the correct ex- 
planation, it is certainly one of the most interesting ex- 
amples on record of the cumulative effect of a slow-work- 
ing cause ; for the movement of the current is scarcely 
two miles an hour, and even by the action of its floating 
ice it produces now no perceptible effects. 

Labrador presents most interesting evidence of the 
oscillations of land which have taken place in northern 
latitudes since the beginning of the Glacial period. A 
remarkable series of raised beaches extend from Henley 
Harbour to Cape Chidley. At Henley Harbour a beach 
occurs at the foot of the Devil's Dining Table one hun- 
dred and eighty feet above the sea level. Long windrows 
of pebbles sweep around the island in beautiful curves, 



44 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

showing the gradual recession of the water. In one 
favoured locality from ten to fifteen such receding lines 
of pebbles can be seen at different levels. Around the 
head of Indian Harbour, on the north side of the en- 
trance to Hamilton Inlet, Packard observed a conspicu- 
ous raised beach of wave-worn shingle, gravel, and sand, 
at an estimated height of two hundred feet, and a second 
about fifty feet above the harbour. At Hopedale, and in 
many other places along this coast, he also reports similar 
beaches. Their altitude increases northward, and at 
Nachvak Inlet (lat. 59°) Dr. Robert Bell observed " ter- 
races or banks of gravel and ancient shingle ... on either 
side of the inlet at various heights up to an estimated 
elevation of two thousand feet." Again he states that 
these " raised beaches show with great distinctness at an 
elevation of about fifteen hundred feet above the sea."* 

In addition to the white population of Labrador, 
which is mostly confined to the portion south of Hamil- 
ton Inlet, there are about fifteen hundred Eskimos liv- 
ing upon the coast of the northern part, and the In- 
dians in the interior are estimated to number about four 
thousand. The Indians are so isolated that they are 
probably the most untamed tribes upon the continent, 
visiting the coast only at intervals. Many things indi- 
cate that they are a waning race, and that, owing to the 
periodical prevalence of fires, which limit the food sup- 
ply of animals, the game upon which their livelihood 
depends is becoming scarcer every year. 

Mr. Low relates that at Fort Chimo, on Ungava Bay, 
a great famine prevailed among the Indians at the trad- 
ing post during the winter preceding his visit in 1893, 

* Geol. Survey of Canada, Annual Report, new series, vol. i, 
1885, p. 7 DD ; Bulletin, Geol. Soc. of America, vol. i, 1890, p. 308. 



THE COAST OF LABRADOR/ 45 

" whereby nearly two thirds of them, or upward of one 
hundred and sixty persons, died of starvation. This ca- 
lamity was due to the failure of the reindeer to follow 
their accustomed routes of migration during the preced- 
ing autumn, when they did not cross the Koksoak Eiver 
in great bands as usual. In consequence, the Indians, 
who depend upon the reindeer for both food and cloth- 
ing, were soon reduced to starvation, and, being unable 
to obtain other supplies, died off by families during the 
winter. About twenty-five Eskimos also perished from 
the same cause. The surviving Indians having been in 
a state of constant starvation throughout the past year, 
and consequently being unable to trap furs and to pay 
their debts, were at the time of our visit in an abject 
state of poverty. A collection was taken up among the 
white people here and the officers of the steamer Eric, 
and sufficient was obtained to partly clothe the naked 
children and the widows whose husbands had died the 
last year. On hearing of the distress among the Indians, 
the Indian Department placed a sum of money at the dis- 
posal of the Hudson Bay Company this year, and a re- 
currence of such a disaster will be impossible in the 
future." * 

The Eskimos have nearly all been converted to Chris- 
tianity through the labours of Moravian missionaries, 
who were led in the work by John Christian Erhardt 
and four companions in 1752; but the untimely death 
of the leader broke up the enterprise before it was fairly 
started. In 1765 Jens Haven, another Moravian, visited 
Chateau Bay with three companions, where he found 
several hundred Eskimos, and remained on good terms 



* Annual Report of the Canadian Geological Survey, Part A, 
vol. vii, pp. 68, 60. 



46 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

with them during the summer. No permanent mission, 
however, was established at that time. The ability of 
Haven to converse with the natives in their own lan- 
guage, which, like Erhardt, he had learned in Green- 
land, was an important means of securing their good 
will and of promoting intercourse between them and 
the whites. But the bond of friendship was soon 
broken, and the Eskimos relapsed into a state of suspi- 
cion and warfare, in which twenty of the natives were 
killed in one contest. Nothing more was done until 
1771, when Haven returned with a party of fifteen, and 
successfully established the mission at Nam, in latitude 
56° 25'. In 1774 a second station was opened at Okkak, 
about fifty miles farther north. In 1782 other Mora- 
vians founded the station at Hopedale, about sixty miles 
south of Nain, and still later those at Zoar, Hebron, and 
Ramah, thus bringing the missions within reach of all. 

In Labrador, as in Greenland, the Eskimos seem, like 
the Indians, to be a waning race, and few of them live 
to be more than fifty years old. Pulmonary diseases are 
extremely prevalent, and the hardships to which the 
men are subjected in hunting the seal make them pre- 
maturely old by the time they are forty. Those in Lab- 
rador differ little in habit and appearance from their 
kinsmen in Greenland, though they can not have had 
any communication with them for a long period — prob- 
ably not for many centuries. But, as already remarked, 
although the early missionaries to Labrador learned the 
Eskimo language in Greenland, they found little diffi- 
culty in communicating their ideas to the natives on 
the west side of Davis Strait. The Labrador kayak, 
though somewhat broader and clumsier, is still very 
similar to that used in Greenland. The dress of the 
people is also in most respects very similar both in pat- 



THE COAST OF LABRADOR. 47 

tern and material, the principal difference being that in 
Labrador the blouse of the women is provided with a 




f\ 







Fig. 13.— A Labrador Eskimo lady iu full winter dress. 



pointed skirt behind, making it somewhat like a gentle- 
man's dresscoat. 

While it is no doubt true that contact with civiliza- 
5 



48 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

tion has been one of the chief causes of the physical 
deterioration of the Eskimos in Labrador, there can be 
as little doubt that the influence of the Moravian mis- 
sionaries, by improving the moral condition of the peo- 
ple, has done much to counteract this deterioration. 
Wisely the missionaries have encouraged the natives to 
continue, for the most part, in their former mode of 
life; but, according to all reports, the change which 
has been produced in their general character is very 
marked. Before coming under the influence of mission- 
aries the Eskimos of Labrador were cruel in the ex- 
treme, so that shipwrecked sailors dreaded above all 
things to fall into their hands, while cannibalism was by 
no means infrequent. The change produced in their 
character by the influence of the missionaries has been 
no less grateful than surprising to the sailors who have 
since been shipwrecked here, and thrown upon the hos- 
pitality of the native population. 

In judging the work of the Moravians among the 
Eskimos in Labrador, one will do well to keep in mind 
the just remarks of Charles Darwin when speaking of 
the missionaries in Tahiti. European critics, he truly 
says, are apt to compare the attainments of a newly 
converted savage race not with what it was before the 
advent of the missionaries, nor even with the average of 
society at home, but " with the high standards of gospel 
perfection. They expect the missionaries to effect what 
the apostles themselves failed to do. Inasmuch as the 
condition of the people falls short of this high standard, 
blame is attached to the missionary, instead of credit for 
that which he has effected. They forget, or will not 
remember, that human sacrifices, and the power of an 
idolatrous priesthood — a system of profligacy unparal- 
leled in any other part of the world — infanticide, a con- 



THE COAST OF LABRADOR. 49 

sequence of that system, bloody wars, where the con- 
querors spared neither women nor children — that all 
these have been abolished ; and that dishonesty, intem- 
perance, and licentiousness have been greatly reduced by 
the introduction of Christianity. In a voyager to forget 
these things is a base ingratitude ; for should he chance 
to be at the point of shipwreck on some unknown coast, 
he will most devoutly pray that the lesson of the mis- 
sionary may have extended thus far." * 

The impressions of Prof. Packard, who spent some 
time at Hopedale in 1864, agree so closely with my 
own received from close contact with the Christian 
Eskimos in Greenland, that I can do no better than 
quote his language : 

" The women's dress differs from that of the men in 
the long tail to their jacket-like garment ; some wore an 
old calico dress-skirt over the original Eskimo dress — a 
thin veneer of civilization typical perhaps of the edu- 
cation they had been receiving for the past generations, 
which was not so thoroughgoing as not to leave external 
traces at least of their savage antecedents. But may 
this not be said of all of us ? — for, only a few centuries 
ago our ancestors were in a state of semi-barbarism, and 
the Anglo- Saxon race can date back to Neolithic Celts 
and bronze-using Aryan barbarians. However this may 
be, the Eskimos at Hopedale were a well-bred, kindly, 
intelligent, scrupulously honest folk, whereas their an- 
cestors before the establishment of the Moravians on 
this coast were treacherous, crafty, and murderous. To 
be shipwrecked on this inhospitable coast was esteemed 
a lesser evil than to fall into the hands of wandering 
bands of Labrador Eskimos. The natives have evident- 

* The Voyage of the Beagle, p. 414. 



50 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

ly been well cared for by the missionaries, kept from 
starvation in the winter, and their lives have been made 
nobler and better. Even in an Eskimo tepee life has 
proved to be worth living." * 

The diverse points of view from which different 
classes of people are likely to criticise each other was 
illustrated during our own journey by some incidents in 
which the Eskimo appeared to as good advantage as did 
the Anglo-Saxon. Among the persons on board the 
Miranda when she started from New York were several 
of the Eskimos from Labrador who had been brought 
to Chicago to exhibit their arts and manner of life at 
the Columbian Exposition of 1893 ; but owing to the dis- 
honesty of one of their employers, they were left in 
Chicago penniless and with no means of returning to 
their homes. As our steamer was to touch on the coast 
of Labrador, friends sent them on to New York, and 
they were permitted to take passage with us, their wants 
being supplied by the generosity of Dr. Cook and vari- 
ous members of our party. Like most of the Eskimos 
of Labrador, these were Christians, and their faithful- 
ness in observing the instructions given them by the 
missionaries made them an object of considerable ridi- 
cule on the part of some of the sailors. Especially were 
they laughed at for the reasons which they assigned for 
our collision with the iceberg. Unfortunately, in their 
estimation, we had left St. John's on Sunday, and to 
their simple faith our collision was a deserved punish- 
ment for breaking the Sabbath. 

On the other hand, the Anglo-Saxon sailors, who 
prided themselves upon their superior race, had many 
of them been in terror during the whole of our course 

* The Labrador Coast, p. 200. 



THE COAST OF LABRADOR. 51 

on account of three ill omens, which did not even have 
the basis of religion beneath them, but were pure super- 
stition. First, three rats had left the ship while lying 
in the harbour at New York ; second, we had chosen 
Friday as the day on which to depart from one of 
the ports into which we had put ; and, third, among 
the tourists there happened to be, in the person of the 
writer, a clergyman (or, as they expressively describe an 
individual of his class, a " sky pilot ") whose presence 
on a voyage, it seems, is an omen of ill luck. The ser- 
vices of the regular pilot and of the " ice pilot " they 
were prepared to accept, but the possible services of the 
" sky pilot " they dreaded beyond measure. On the 
whole, therefore, it would seem that the scruples of 
the Christian Eskimo are, to say the least, as worthy 
of respect as is the superstition of the ordinary British 
seaman. There was certainly as much reason in the 
Eskimo woman's apprehensions of evil for breaking 
the Sabbath as there was in the sailor's forebodings in 
view of leaving Sydney on Friday, or on account of the 
instincts of the rats which chose to stay in New York 
rather than risk the hazards of a voyage to Greenland. 

North of Hudson Strait there is a vast region not 
often visited, which is occupied by Eskimos who are 
as yet not influenced by contact with Europeans. 
Though the region is cold and desolate in the extreme, 
it has been generally supposed that it possesses no 
glaciers of very great extent ; but while it is true that 
the glaciers upon the west side of Baffin Bay do not 
compare with those in Greenland, the region should 
have credit for furnishing a small quota of icebergs to 
the procession which we have described as moving 
majestically southward along the Labrador coast. Dur- 



52 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

ing Hall's residence in Frobisher's Bay he made obser- 
vations upon an icefield in the Kingait range of moun- 
tains, from which the Grinnell glacier proceeds. This 
is estimated to be fully one hundred miles long, dis- 
charging itself into the sea with a perpendicular face 
one hundred feet above the water. Over this area the 
line of perpetual snow comes down to within one thou- 
sand feet of the sea level, which is scarcely half the 
height of the snow line in southern Greenland. 



CHAPTER III. 

SPITZBERGEN" ICE IN" DAVIS STRAIT. 

Having temporarily mended the Miranda on the 
coast of Labrador, it was deemed prudent to return to 
St. John's for permanent repairs. These being com- 
pleted, we started again for Greenland upon the 29th of 




Fig. 14.— St. John's Harbour, Newfoundland. 

July, but now we directed our course to Frederikshaab, 
in latitude 62°, the course being almost directly due 
north. Having passed at right angles through the 
same solemn procession of icebergs which we had viewed 
with such admiration two weeks before, we found our- 

53 



54 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

selves steaming for several hundred miles in unen- 
cumbered waters through the middle of Davis Strait. 
The mountains in the vicinity of Frederikshaab were 
sighted on the morning of the fourth day, August 2d ; 
but there lay between us and the desired harbour a belt 
of floe or pan ice fifteen or twenty miles wide, and 
with no openings apparent sufficient to permit our 
steamer to enter it with safety. For the most part the 
single pieces of ice composing this floe rose but a few 
feet above the water, and were small in area when com- 
pared with those which occur in the far north. Occa- 
sionally huge icebergs, comparable in size to those seen 
upon the coast of Labrador, towered in lonely grandeur 
above the ice pack which here interfered with our navi- 
gation. Northward the ice extended as far as the eye 
could reach, while there were occasionally narrow belts 
of loose ice projecting westward from the main line like 
windrows in a hayfield. These were probably distributed 
by some tidal movement which was not otherwise ap- 
parent. 

At this time of the year the pieces of ice forming 
the floe were in a somewhat advanced stage of disin- 
tegration, esj^ecially upon the borders of the belt, and 
presented the most fantastic appearance imaginable. 
Frequently a cake of ice of considerable extent below 
the water would above the surface have the appearance 
of a large cluster of mushrooms, supported on delicate 
pedestals of intense blue ice merging into a basement of 
green. The temperature of the water, which stood 
pretty uniformly at 37° above zero, was just warm 
enough to permit the waves in their continual dashing 
to facilitate the melting of the lower stratum of ice 
above the water line. 

The coldness of the water and the great extent of the 



SPITZBERGEN ICE IN DAVIS STRAIT. 55 

floe ice were naturally conducive of foggy weather, 
which we now had for three days almost continuously. 
During this time but little progress could be made. At 
intervals of partially clearing weather the steamer 
would venture to move forward cautiously, but during 






Fig. 15. — Floe ice west of Greenland. 



a greater part of the period safety consisted in lying 
still. While surrounded by the fog our ears were 
often greeted by the ominous, dull, low murmur of 
the small waves which at no great distance, but out 
of sight, were dashing against the innumerable pieces 
of ice composing the floe. It was like the muffled 
roar of distant breakers upon a rocky coast, and, 
coming to us out of the mist and darkness, was 
calculated to affect the imagination most power- 
fully. 

The mystery of this floe ice off the southern coast of 
Greenland was increased by the occasional occurrence 
of pieces of driftwood, some of which were from twenty 
to twenty-five feet in length. We were not able to 



56 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

secure any specimens of these, but their story could be 
readily told. They were doubtless stray representatives 
of that supply of Siberian wood and timber which a 
kind Providence regularly furnishes to the inhabitants 
of southern Greenland to render their life endurable 
and even possible. Sometimes logs sixty feet long are 
drifted upon the shore. Rink reports one which yielded 
between two and three cords of wood. According to 
him, the pieces " are frequently twelve feet long, and a 
length of thirty feet is not rare. The annual gleanings 
upon the whole coast may be conjectured to be between 
eighty and a hundred and twenty cords, of which 
scarcely more than a tenth part passes 68° north lati- 
tude." * Much driftwood was reported by Koldewey on 
the east coast in latitude 75°. 

For the most part this driftwood is from coniferous 
trees. Having grown upon the banks of the rivers in 
far-off Siberia, these waifs were first washed downstream 
in the seasons of high water, and then carried far out 
into the Arctic Sea, where they were drawn into that 
slow but steady current which first sets to the northward 
from the northern coasts of Asia and from Spitsbergen, 
and then, passing on southward, conducts the ice floes of 
that region along the eastern coast of Greenland, as the 
Labrador current carries southward the ice from Baffin 
Bay. It is to the tender mercies of this current that 
Nansen has committed himself and his companions. 
Trusting to its constancy, as indicated by the few facts 
at command, this heroic explorer has pushed his little 
ship into the midst of the moving ice in that quarter of 
the globe, and is now patiently awaiting the results, con- 
fidently expecting to be carried past the north pole, and 

* Rink's Danish Greenland, 1877, p. 91. 



SPITSBERGEN ICE IN DAVIS STRAIT. 57 

to be liberated at last on the southern coast of eastern 
Greenland. 

In addition to the evidence sustaining his hope 
derived from the Siberian driftwood, Nansen thought 
he had facts of still more specific meaning in some pieces 
of clothing which had been lost from the unfortunate 
Jeannette when in 1881 it was crushed in the ice north 
of Siberia. After three years, what were supposed to be 
the same articles were found drifting past southeastern 
Greenland upon the floe ice of the Spitzbergen current. 
Let us hope that his own ship will not be crushed, 
that his provisions will prove adequate, and that his life 
and health may be spared to complete the adventurous 
journey. 

The movement of this Spitzbergen current along the 
east coast of Greenland has been frequently observed, and 
is produced by the same general class of forces that gives 
constancy to the Labrador current. In 1829, when Graah 
was spending the winter at Frederiksdal in preparation 
for his expedition along the eastern coast, he seems to 
have known the principal facts concerning the Spitz- 
bergen ice current, and to have speculated upon its move- 
ments about as correctly as any one could do at the pres- 
ent time. 

" On the 25th of January, precisely the usual time 
of its return," he says, " the first stream of heavy drift 
ice, of which we had seen nothing since the month of 
September previous, made its appearance. The cause of 
its periodical departure from and return to the district 
of Juliana's-hope, it is not easy to determine. It is well 
known that the heavy drift ice usually every summer be- 
sets the southern and western coasts of Greenland, from 
Cape Farewell to latitude 62° or 63°, frequently to 64°, and 
sometimes even as high up as 67°, the latitude of Hoi- 



58 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

steinborg, as is said to have been the case in 1825. In 
September or October, or perhaps still earlier, it dis- 
appears again, and the general opinion is that it is SAvept 
away by the current westward toward America. No 
such current, however, would seem, in fact, to exist— at 
least, to the best of my knowledge, there is none such to 
be met with in the district of Juliana's-hope ; for which 
reason I am rather inclined to attribute this regular dis- 
appearance of the ice toward the close of summer to an- 
other cause — its gradual dissolution by the heat of the 
summer sun, and the sea perpetually washing over it ; 
the more so because detached streams of it are often seen 
the whole year through, even at those seasons when the 
main body of it has disappeared. But how are we to 
account for the coming of the ice to these coasts at a cer- 
tain fixed period of the year ? The following appears to 
me the most reasonable explanation of this phenomenon : 
The ice that in January reaches these coasts is probably 
part of a formation that has taken place on the east coast 
of Greenland in a high northern latitude, and from which 
it has probably detached itself as early as the winter 
previous. It is without doubt identically the same ice 
among which the Spitzbergen whalers have navigated 
the summer before. By the southwesterly current, known 
to prevail in these seas, it is carried down between Ice- 
land and Greenland, to past Cape Farewell, where it en- 
counters another current that carries it up to Davis 
Straits. But as the southwesterly current here spoken 
of is not accidental nor periodical, but constant (it being 
the effect of the earth's revolution on its axis), and as 
the polar sea contains such enormous masses of drift 
ice, might we not, then, look to find Cape Farewell 
always beset with ice? Yet this, as well-informed per- 
sons testify, is by no means the case, the sea around 



SP1TZBERGEN ICE IN DAVIS STRAIT. 59 

this promontory being usually free of ice, or nearly so, 
from October to January. How are we to account for 
this? Either by supposing that the ice is broken up 
and dispersed by the hard southerly gales that prevail 
here in the autumn and winter, or that the whole mass 
of ice that in the spring begins its progress from between 
Spitzbergen and Greenland, and which reaches the lati- 
tude of Cape Farewell toward the close of summer is then 
already near its period of dissolution. While in the mean- 
time this process is going on with respect to that portion 
of the ice that drifts toward Cape Farewell, another 
and considerable body of it is carried by the current in 
toward the east coast, where, encountering the land, it 
accumulates into a compact mass which only now and 
then yields to a strong and long-continued wind from 
off the shore ; and which, there being here neither swell 
nor current to act upon it, forms with probably but little 
intermission a constant and impenetrable barrier along 
the coast."* 

Singularly enough, the Spitzbergen ice current, like 
that of Labrador, has been made available for transporta- 
tion of shipwrecked sailors through long distances. In- 
deed, a considerable portion of the eastern coast of Green- 
land, for about six hundred miles southward from latitude 
68° N., was within sight of the drifting creAv of the ship 
Hansa of the North German Exploring Expedition, who, 
when their ship was crushed, had sought refuge upon 
the same masses of ice which caused the destruction of 
their vessel. 

The Hansa belonged to the Second German Arctic 
Expedition of 1869 and 1870. She was a brig of sev- 

* Narrative of an Expedition to the East Coast of Greenland, 
pp. 54, 55. 



60 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

enty-six tons, commanded by Carjtain Hegemann, with 
fourteen officers and men. The vessel sailed from Bremen 
on June 15, 1869, aiming to reach the northeastern coast 
of Greenland in time to do some exploring before winter 
set in. The Hansa was accompanied by the Germania, 
a screw steamer of one hundred and forty tons, com- 
manded by Captain Koldewey, who had charge of the 
whole expedition. The ships planned to meet at Sa- 
bine Island (latitude 74° north) ; but early in September, 
when near the place of rendezvous, the Hansa became 
entangled in the ice pack and was frozen in, so that the 
two ships failed to meet. It soon became evident that 
the party would have to pass the winter in the ice, and 
that safety might require them to abandon the ship. A 
small house was built of coal bricks on the ice floe, and 
was made as comfortable as possible, having been pro- 
visioned for two months ; but for some time the ship 
remained near them, secure in the ice, which was then 
drifting without much commotion. 

From the 5th to the 14th of September they drifted 
seventy-two miles in a south-southwest direction. On 
October 18th the ice began to "thrust," and more se- 
riously endanger the vessel. On the 19th the ship was 
dismantled, and as much as possible of her cargo was 
transferred to the ice floe upon which the house had 
been built. Here, buried in the accumulating snows, 
they passed the long winter. The coldest weather ex- 
perienced was on December 18th, when the thermometer 
fell to 20° below zero (F.). Until January 1st little oc- 
curred to break the dull monotony of their experience ; 
but on the 2d of January the imprisoned crew began to 
hear the ominous sound produced by the scraping of the 
floe upon the ground. They were nearing the shore or 
passing over shoals, and it was evident that there was 



SPITZBERGEN ICE IN DAVIS STRAIT. 61 

imminent danger that the unstable foundations on 
which they had built would break up. On the 4th 
day of January the cake of ice upon which their house 
was built was diminished in size from a diameter of two 
miles to a diameter of one, and upon three sides of them 
they were but two hundred steps from the very edge, 
with a terrific storm raging. When the sky cleared 
they found themselves within sight of Capes Buchholz 
and Hildebraudt, and only two miles distant from them. 
The following extract from the captain's log gives a 
vivid impression of their experiences during that and 
several other nights : 

" The weather in the past night was calm and clear. 
The moon shone brilliantly ; the northern lights and 
the stars glittered upon the dead beauty of a landscape 
of ice and snow. Listening at night, a strong, clear 
tone strikes the ear, then again a sound as of some 
one drawing near with slow and measured steps. We 
listen— what is it ? All still ; not a breath is stir- 
ring. Once more it sounds like a lamentation or 
a groan. It is the ice ; and now it is still, still as the 
grave; and from the glance of the moon the ghostly 
outlined coast is seen, from which the giant rocks are 
looking over to us. Ice, rocks, and thousands of glit- 
tering stars. thou wonderful, ghostlike night of 
the north ! " 

On January 11th the ice upon which they were float- 
ing again split up, so that it was only a hundred and 
fifty feet in diameter, and the current was impelling 
them madly along, threatening to dash them against an 
iceberg ahead, which they had no means of avoiding. 
But fortunately the danger was passed without injury. 
On February 1st a fragment broke off from the main 
mass of ice, showing that its thickness was about thirty 



62 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

feet, which gave them assurance of comparative safety. 
On March 18th observation showed them to be in 
latitude 68° 2'. Thence they drifted more than six 
hundred miles southwesterly along and in sight of 
the eastern coast of Greenland. On March 29th they 
were in the latitude of Nubarlik, where the ice on 
which they were floating was pressed into a bight, and 
they were compelled to remain four weeks in idle- 
ness. After three weeks more they had drifted to 
latitude 01° 4'. 

Spring was now beginning to shed its genial warmth, 
and, though no land was in sight, linnets and snow bunt- 
ings appeared in great numbers. On May 7th open 
water leading toward the land appeared in latitude 61° 
12', upon which, at 4 p. m., after having been upon the 
ice floe two hundred days, they launched their boats 
and took final leave of their icy foundations. On the 
24th of May they reached Illnidlek Island (latitude 
60° 55'), or rather the ice floe surrounding it, for it was 
not until June 4th that they actually reached land. On 
June* 6th they set sail for Frecleriksclal, camping at 
night five miles north of Cape Dalloe. Here they were 
greeted by the first flowers of summer — sorrel, dande- 
lions, cinquefoil, lifting their tiny heads from every 
sheltered fissure which faced the sun. On the 13th of 
June they reached the most southern station of the Mo- 
ravians, for which they had set out, where they were 
heartily greeted both by the natives and by their own 
missionary countrymen, and in due time were carried 
back to Europe, to electrify the world with their mar- 
vellous story. 

Nansen, too, when attempting to reach the eastern 
coast of Greenland to begin his celebrated' journey across 
the inland ice-sheet, was himself a prisoner amid the 



64 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

floe ice for a month. On June 28th, in latitude 66° 24' 
north, land was first sighted by the ship which was to 
leave him, but it was not until the 17th of July that 
he made the attempt to land. Putting off in his small 
boats, and leaving the vessel to return to Norway, he 
endeavoured in vain to reach the shore, finding it im- 
possible to do so on account of the ice. After struggling 
two days with the shifting ice-laden currents, he took 
refuge upon an ice floe, and set up his tent upon it to 
await the issue. Here he was compelled to remain until 
the 29th of July, when a fortunate turn in the current 
enabled him to effect a landing, but not at the place for 
which he had set out. During these twelve days of 
anxious experience upon the ice he had drifted two 
whole degrees southward, at an average rate of ten 
miles a day, corresponding very closely to that of the 
Tyson party on the coast of Labrador. 

When the Spitzbergen ice reaches Cape Farewell it 
is forced, by the general movements occasioned by the 
Gulf Stream (a branch of which runs far up into Davis 
Strait), to turn northwest and hug the western shore of 
southern Greenland. It is thus that Siberian wood is 
brought to supply the Greenland Eskimo with the ma- 
terial needed in the construction of his houses, his boats, 
and his implements. Upon this ice also are brought 
the seals, which to such an extent supply him with food, 
and with covering for both himself and his boat. It 
was this belt of Spitzbergen ice which our ship encoun- 
tered off Frederikshaab on the 3d of August, and which 
prevented our reaching the shore until the 7th. The 
Danish vessels avoid the ice by keeping about a hundred 
miles south of Cape Farewell, and going northward near 
the middle of Davis Strait to the latitude of Godthaab or 



SP1TZBERGEN ICE IN DAVIS STRAIT. 65 

Sukkertoppen, when they can usually reach shore with- 
out difficulty. So continuous is this belt of ice that 
some of the southern settlements are rarely reached 
by the direct route, but vessels are compelled first to 
go round the northern end of the ice pack, and follow 
down the shore through the clear space usually exist- 
ing there. 



CHAPTER IV. 

EXCURSIONS ON THE COAST OE GREENLAND. 

The " outskirts " of Greenland, as they are called, 
consist of a fringe of islands, mountains, and promon- 
tories surrounding the vast ice-covered central portion, 
and varying in width from a mere border up to eighty 
miles. Upon the east side this fringe is everywhere ex- 
ceedingly narrow, and affords but scanty opportunity 
for the maintenance of life of any kind. Upon the west 
side, below the seventy-third parallel, it has an average 
of about fifty miles in width, and extends with little 
interruption from Cape Farewell to Melville Bay, a dis- 
tance of something over one thousand miles. Every- 
where this mountainous belt is penetrated by deep fiords 
which reach to the inland ice, and are terminated by 
the perpendicular fronts of huge glaciers ; while in the 
vicinity of Ivigtut (latitude 61°) and Frederikshaab 
(latitude 62° 45') the ice comes down in broad projec- 
tions close to the sea margin. 

The seaward aspect of the west Greenland coast is 
stern and forbidding in the extreme. The serrate edge 
of the long mountain chain does not, however, rise to 
any great height, being rarely over two thousand or 
three thousand feet above the level of the sea, with occa- 
sional peaks running up to four thousand feet. It is 
only in a limited area north of Disco Island that the 
mountains rise to a height of seven thousand feet. 

66 



EXCURSIONS ON THE COAST OF GREENLAND. 67 

As first seen from a distance of forty or fifty miles, 
Greenland seems anything but a justification of its 




name, for even the " outskirts," which are supposed to 
be free from ice, are so only in part. Local glaciers, 
which would be objects of great attraction in Switzer- 



68 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

land or Norway, mark the summits of many of the 
promontories, and from a distance form a conspicuous 
element of the scenery. As one approaches nearer, 
these lingering ice masses upon the summits become 
hidden from view behind the projecting precipices and 
steep slopes of the partially submerged mountain range. 
But still there is little to justify the name of Greenland. 
No forests or shrubs and no running vines relieve the 
sternness of the rocky surfaces. Even the lichens and 
mosses, by their sombre hue, intensify the barrenness of 
the scene. Upon penetrating the fiords, however, a par- 
tial change takes place. A few miles back from the 
border in southern Greenland there are numerous small 
expanses of pasture land and a few limited areas covered 
with stunted shrubs and dwarf trees. 

According to Rink, " the largest and tallest birch 
tree " in Greenland is fourteen feet high, but this height 
has been attained only through the protection of two 
huge boulders between which it is so fortunate as to be 
sheltered on either side. Willows and alders frequently 
grow in the south to a height of from five to eight feet, 
while juniper bushes sometimes attain a thickness of 
five or six inches, but these are merely creeping shrubs 
spreading out over the tops of the stones and rocks and 
attaining to no height. In the sheltered places nu- 
merous brilliantly coloured flowering plants abound, of 
which rhododendron, epilobium, the bluebell, the ar- 
nica, and the buttercup are prominent. But these are 
not conspicuous in the general survey of the country. 

A favoured spot, which Rink has called the " Green- 
land Eden," occurs between Lichtenau and Frederiksdal 
(latitude 60°). The place is about twenty miles back 
from the sea, a little to the east of the middle portion of 
Tasermiut Fiord. Here, on passing out of the fiord, up 



EXCURSIONS ON THE COAST OF GREENLAND. 69 

the rapids of a small stream, one finds himself in an 
amphitheatre surrounded by sheltering mountains three 
thousand feet high, where vegetation flourishes as no- 
where else in the outskirts, and where the largest tree, 
already spoken of, had found opportunity for growth. 
The enterprise and sagacity of the early Norse settlers 
is shown in the fact that they had discovered this nook 
and occupied it, as is made known by the extensive 
ruins of several stone buildings. Nearly all of the early 
Norse settlements were in such sheltered places back 
some distance from the sea margin and south of the 
sixty-fifth parallel. 

The greenness of these sequestered nooks furnishes 
some justification for the name of the land ; for, after 
beating about amid the floes of Spitzbergen ice which 
encircle the southern portion of the country, and after 
having penetrated the various fiords intersecting the 
frowning seaward wall, the little green patches which 
at length greeted the adventurers well may have deeply 
impressed their minds. It is more probable, however, 
that the name had a different origin, being chosen to 
promote a land speculation, as is recorded in the history 
of Eric the Reel. " Let us call the name of the land 
Greenland," he is reported to have said, " because peo- 
ple will sooner be induced to go thither in case it has a 
good name." So successful is this scheme of the crafty 
adventurer said to have been that twenty-five shiploads 
of fortune-seekers followed him from Iceland, their less 
attractively named but far more hospitable native 
country. 

Twenty or twenty-five miles back from the shore, in 
southern Greenland, there is everywhere a marked amel- 
ioration of climatic conditions, and much less preva- 
lence of foggy weather than on the coast. The favourite 



70 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

reindeer haunts are in this comparatively sheltered belt 
lying adjacent to the edge of the inland ice. In some 
years as many as fifty thousand reindeer have been killed 
by the natives in these hunting grounds. The problem 
of how this useful animal came to be dispersed through 
so many degrees of latitude and along a shore that is 
frequently interrupted by impassable fiords and icefields 
will be considered in a later chapter. 

The division between northern and southern Green- 
land on the west coast is fixed at Nagsutok Fiord (lati- 
tude 67° 40'). South of this the bays and inlets do not 
freeze over in winter sufficiently to admit of being trav- 
ersed with dogs and sledges, so that the colonies there 
are much more isolated than in north Greenland, 
where natural highways over the frozen water invite 
much travel in the winter season, and where the bril- 
liant moon and the flaming aurora vie with each other 
in dispelling the gloom of the long arctic night. 

The geological features of the western coast are re- 
markably uniform, except in the vicinity of Disco Bay. 
The rocks, like those of Labrador, consist largely of 
gneiss and granite, intersected with numerous dikes of 
eruptive material ; but, so far as observed, there are no 
extensive areas of volcanic rock in southern Greenland. 
Nor have any mines of the precious metals been found. 
At Ivigtut (latitude 61° 10'), cryolite (a fluoride of 
sodium and aluminium) has been discovered in such ex- 
tent and purity that it has been profitable to mine it for 
the manufacture of soda and alumina, the latter being 
of a quality much desired in the art of dyeing. There 
is no other place in the world where this mineral is 
found in large quantities. The vein here occurs between 
walls of gneiss and is three hundred feet wide. 

First and last our view of the Greenland coast ex- 



EXCURSIONS ON THE COAST OF GREENLAND. 71 

tended from Frederikshaab to the vicinity of Holstein- 
borg, a distance of about three hundred miles ; while 
from Sukkertoppen (latitude 65° 25') we were able to 
make extensive tours into the interior through the fiords 
and along the channels. A brief account of two excur- 
sions will assist in bringing the general features of the 
country more vividly to view. 

Having arrived at Sukkertoppen on the morning of 




Fig. 18.— Scene on the way to Isortok Fiord. 

the 7th of August, it was soon ascertained that we were 
to remain two days before setting out for the regions 
farther north. A party of ten or twelve was therefore 
organized to visit the glaciers and reindeer pastures 
about twenty-five miles up South Isortok Fiord, which 
lay directly to the east of our anchoring place. Isortok 
means " having muddy water," aud hence is descriptive 
of those fiords which are discoloured by subglacial 
streams of considerable size. On this account the name 



72 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

is found applied to more than one fiord along the west- 
ern coast. This one reaches the sea in latitude 65° 25', 
and penetrates the border to a distance of about fifty 
miles, where it meets the inland ice ; but branches from 
the ice come down to it from a projection on the north, 
about twenty-five miles from Sukkertoppen. 

The scenes connected with our setting out upon the 
excursion were novel and exciting in the extreme. We 
were loaded into three of the ship's boats (one large 
boat and two dories) with a trusty Eskimo guide in each, 
and were provided with camping outfit and a limited 
supply of provisions. It was past the middle of the 
afternoon before we were well under way; but the sky 
was clear, and as evening twilight lingered until the 
break of the following dawn we had no fear of being 
benighted. 

In response to the lusty stroke of our oarsmen we 
were soon out into the middle of the shallow bay, where 
the mountains rose in picturesque forms both before 
us and behind. Behind us they continued to rise 
higher and higher above the lower but nearer promi- 
nences, until the serrate edge of the central axis came 
full in view on the glowing western horizon, where 
the contour of jagged edges was so striking that it 
would be difficult to find anything anywhere in the 
world to match it. It reminded me of nothing else so 
much as of the sky line of the Teton Mountains as I 
saw it a few years ago from Jackson's Lake at their 
eastern foot, looking toward the setting sun ; but here 
the beauty was enhanced by the extensive and varie- 
gated expanse of water which was spread everywhere 
around us, extending its arms into countless recesses of 
the islands, or stretching out through illimitable vistas 
into the retreating fiords. Before us the mountains of 



EXCURSIONS ON THE COAST OF GREENLAND. 73 

the mainland gradually sank behind the innumerable 
islands which we approached and among which we 
slowly threaded our way. But now and again they 
would burst forth in new glory as some special island 
point was rounded and we came out for a little while 
into an open stretch of water. In lee of the islands the 
waters were as peaceful as on a landlocked lake, but 
when the broader passages were reached the swells of 
the neighbouring ocean tossed our boat in a manner 
well calculated to arouse the fear of a landsman, while 
all were inclined to give wide berth to the breakers 
which dashed against the windward shores or marked 
the shallow reefs whose backs were almost bare at cer- 
tain stages of the tide. Here and there a piece of drift- 
wood had been safely hauled ashore by some native and 
placed above the reach of the waves, to await the con- 
venience of the finder. So sacred is the right to this 
kind of property that no one thinks of appropriating 
what another has discovered. Scarcely anything else is 
invested with such well-recognised property rights. 

The sun went down long before we reached our ob- 
jective point ; but we rowed on in the brilliant twilight 
until about eleven o'clock, when it was decided to pull 
in to shore and encamp for the night. We were now 
fairly within the fiord. In rounding the point at the 
entrance several deserted igloos indicated the attractive- 
ness of the neighbourhood for temporary residence, but 
only the Eskimo knew where to find safety and comfort 
for the night. Passing one or two places which looked 
attractive enough to inexperienced eyes in the twilight, 
we at length rounded a low projecting rock, and entered 
a sheltered cove, where we could draw our boats far out 
upon a sandy beach beyond the reach of the rising tide. 
A few steps away there was a level plat of moss and 



74 



GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 



matted running vines which made the softest imaginable 
bed on which to spread our blankets and stretch our 
weary limbs, for each of us had had his turn at the 
oars. The tent could shelter but half the company, but 
the sky was so clear and the weather so moderate that 
the rest could sleep in their bags in the open air without 





, '■-;'• ■'..'•V-. : /' 








> .. 


|!| 




P^ 


''!*.'-/Av-,' 


" , •' 








*- . -. a 






' i 






ss^^^. 


,„\md <.ii > 







'Sr* ^s. 



Fig. 19.— First camp on the fiord. 

discomfort. It was so light that we could read the time 
on our watch dials in the tent all night long. 

Although daylight appeared behind the mountains 
of the eastern side of the fiord long before it had dis- 
appeared in the west, the sun did not surmount the line 
of peaks until the forenoon was well begun. Folding 
our tent and eating a hasty breakfast, we set out at an 
early hour to complete what seemed to be the short pull 
to the mountain (Nukagpiak) which had so long en- 



EXCURSIONS ON THE COAST OF GREENLAND. 75 

tranced our vision, its snowy sides rising like a fairy 
object above the nearer but lower peaks, full in view all 
the way from Sukkertoppen. It was now high tide, and 
the water was almost without a ripple. Everything, 
therefore, promised a speedy completion of our journey. 
The walls of the fiord rose in increasing grandeur on 
either side, and the local glaciers and snowfields took 
on ever-changing and fantastic forms upon the flanks 
of the mountains as we shifted our position in the 
channel. The width of the fiord was apparently a little 
over a mile, widening out into broader expanses at in- 
frequent intervals. Numerous flocks of gulls flew over 
our heads, and the reports of the shots fired at them 
from our guns reverberated from side to side in a most 
impressive manner, revealing, by the length of time 
which separated the echoes, both the width of the 
channel and our relative distance from each mountain 
side. 

As at one place we rounded a promontory we came 
suddenly in sight of a party of natives in a boat, who 
were somewhat alarmed at our approach and at the reck- 
less firing of our guns ; but their fears were soon allayed, 
and we approached near enough to them to find that 
they were a family from Sukkertoppen who had been 
spending the summer at a neighbouring camping place, 
where game and fish were plenty, and now were return- 
ing home to make preparations for the winter. The 
women were at the oars. As the water was smooth the 
kayak was resting on the rear of the boat, and every- 
thing betokened the pleasure which they derived from 
the beauty of the scene and the leisurely rate at which 
they were permitted to proceed. From them we pur- 
chased a supply of freshly caught salmon trout, and then 
pulled away with all our might to reach the foot of the 



76 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

mountain peak whose vision had been so long tantalizing 
us. But the tide had turned, and though the surface 
was smooth a swift current was setting outward, to dis- 
charge the vast amount of water which the rising tide 
had pushed into the upper twenty- five miles of the fiord. 
On this account progress was slow, and at times we were 
scarcely able to make any at all. The mountain, how- 
ever, did gradually grow nearer to us, and the hanging 
glaciers from the projecting plateau which buttressed its 
southwestern side smiled down upon us, as though they 
were the most innocent objects in the world ; whereas 
they were in reality the most terrible, being liable to 
break off at any moment and rush down the steep sides 
in swift avalanches to the water. 

At length, but not until the forenoon was nearly 
passed, we attained the cove for which we had been aim- 
ing, and, pulling our boats above the reach of tide, we 
hastened to explore the strange scenes of the vicinity. 
A rich growth of grass covered the rocks in the narrow 
inclosure and partially disguised their ruggedness. The 
milky current of a brook which issued from the foot of 
a great glacier a few hundred yards away rushed madly 
over the boulders which lay in the bed of the stream. 
To the south of us the northern face of a portion of the 
mountain range frowned upon us with its jagged peaks, 
its numerous hanging glaciers, and its bare perpendicu- 
lar walls. North of us was the sloping sunward flank of 
Nukagpiak, covered with verdure and brilliant flowers, 
where reindeer might bask in the sunshine and feed to 
their hearts' content during the long summer days. 

For two or three hours we wandered over this Elysian 
field, plucking its flowers, dancing in delight on its 
thickly carpeted, quaking bogs, and clambering to its 
various points of lookout, from which the eye could at 



EXCURSIONS ON THE COAST OF GREENLAND. ?? 

one sweep take in the whole view from the island -dotted 
coast to the smooth white outline of the vast inland ice- 
fields. The glacier whose subglacial stream entered the 
fiord at our landing place came down to within about 
three hundred feet of the sea level. It did not present 
a perpendicular face, but ended in a very steep slope — 
too steep to permit a direct ascent of its surface. To get 
upon the ice it was necessary to clamber along the lateral 
moraine to a height of about one thousand feet before 
the slope became sufficiently gentle to render it safe to 
venture upon it. Here it was not far from a mile in 
width, growing wider higher up, until it merged into 
a large snowfield which covered the extensive plateau of 
which Nukagpiak is the culminating peak. This glacier 
is isolated from the main ice-sheet, but upon the north 
side of the fiord vast snowfields continuous with those 
of the interior are visible. East of Nukagpiak, upon 
both sides of the fiord, there are large areas from which 
the snow melts off in summer, and which furnish pas- 
turage for a considerable number of reindeer. 

We had heard much about the Greenland mosquito, 
but here we met the creatures themselves and both 
saw and felt them in all their glory. They came out in 
swarms from every tuft of grass and bunch of flowers, 
and although less voracious than those in temperate 
climates, they made up in power to produce discomfort 
by the infinitude of their number, which rendered it 
almost impossible for us to rest a moment. The various 
members of our party, as they were scattered over the 
mountain side, looked like moving windmills, so vigorous 
and constant were the motions necessary to get even 
partial deliverance from these pests. The sight of one of 
our number who attempted to bathe is never to be for- 
gotten. Before he could reach the water's edge the 



EXCURSIONS ON THE COAST OF GREENLAND. ?9 

mosquitoes had gathered upon his naked skin, until at a 
distance he looked like a hairy ape ; and when he plunged 
for relief into the cold water they hovered around, as if 
well knowing that it was too chilly for him to endure it 
long, ready to light in clouds upon him as he rose from 
its depths. It is fair to say, however, that this was the 
only occasion upon which we were troubled with the 
pests. In the much longer excursion taken at a later 
time the mosquito netting with which we provided our- 
selves was a useless article. Either it was too late in the 
season or the weather was too cold and stormy, or for 
some other reason, they did not visit Ikamiut, where we 
were in camp during the next two weeks. 

It was late in the afternoon when we set out upon 
our return from Nukagpiak, and we were doubtful 
whether we should reach Sukkertoppen that night. But 
our provisions were nearly exhausted, though we had 
supplemented them by a hearty meal upon the fish pur- 
chased in the morning. These we had boiled until they 
were tender and had eaten without seasoning. By gen- 
eral consent, however, it was agreed that, even so, we 
had never had a more luxurious repast. 

The tide was now low, and we found that our boats 
were left a long way from the margin of the fiord and 
with anything but a smooth channel leading to it. The 
bouldery bed of the mountain torrent rendered it ex- 
ceedingly difficult to haul the larger boat down to the 
water without injuring it ; but having accomplished 
this task, we made all haste to get well on our way before 
the tide should rise and delay us by its incoming, as it 
had done in the morning by its outgoing current. The 
mosquitoes proved faithful in their friendship and did 
not forsake us until we were some miles on our way. 
Such progress was made in the early part of the evening 
7 



80 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

that it was thought best to make no stop, and so we had 
the pleasure of again wending our course through the 
islands of the bay in the middle of the night, when the 
picturesque outline of the mountain peaks around the 
northern horizon was again all aglow with the twilight of 
the midnight sun. The Miranda was reached about two 
o'clock in the morning, to find that the captain had 
determined to start northward as soon as possible. 

After running upon the reef outside the harbour 
and returning again to our anchoring place, it was de- 
cided that it would be necessary to remain ten days, at 
least, at Sukkertoppen, while the kayakers went up the 
coast to Holsteinborg in search of assistance. To relieve 
our friends in case we were compelled to spend the win- 
ter in Greenland, all wrote home letters and despatched 
them by kayaks to Ivigtut, about three hundred miles to 
the south, hoping that they would reach that point be- 
fore the last ship left for Denmark. The faithfulness 
of the messengers is witnessed to by the fact that in due 
time the letters all reached our friends, although two 
months later than our own arrival home. 

As there was no time to be lost, another camping 
party was immediately organized, to be absent from the 
ship ten days to do what it could in exploring the edge 
of the inland ice, which comes down into the fiord set- 
ting back from Ikamiut, twenty miles north of Sukker- 
toppen. 

Again the expedition started in the middle of the 
afternoon. One large boat and two dories were required 
to carry us and our equipment, while three kayakers ac- 
companied us for our protection and assistance. The 
swells which came in from the southwest were long and 
high until we reached the lee of a line of islands, in which 
our guides were careful to keep us as much as possible, 



82 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

We were now passing through one of those long chan- 
nels between the picturesque mountains whose vista had 
so delighted us on previous days. In due time great 
glaciers began to look down upon us from the moun- 
tain heights to the east ; but they paused in their 
course long before reaching the water level. Near here 
a broad opening to the ocean displayed itself between 
the islands of Sukkertoppen and Sermersut, and permit- 
ted the swells from two directions to toss us upon their 
capricious crests. A hard pull now across the mouth of 
Ikamiut Fiord brought us late at night, but still amid 
the splendour of the arctic twilight, to the settle- 
ment on the point of the promontory at the northern 
side of the fiord, where it joins the open channel east 
of the large island of Sermersut. To our unpractised 
eyes there were no signs of human habitation near, but 
on rounding a low projection of rocks our ears were 
greeted with the indescribable jargon of a strange dia- 
lect proceeding from the throats of twenty- five or thirty 
Eskimos, young and old, who had crawled out from the 
most miserable-looking human habitations that it is pos- 
sible to imagine. But they were friendly voices, and we 
did not scorn the help rendered us in unloading our 
boats and hauling them to a place of safety, nor the 
advice given us as to the most suitable camping place. 

In the morning we took more careful note of our 
situation, and of the condition of the people who were 
to be our neighbours. Across the channel, at a distance 
of about three miles, rose the picturesque eastern face 
of Sermersut Island to a height of something over four 
thousand feet, showing clearly the westerly dip of the 
strata, and concealing the vast icefields which cover 
the northwestern slope of the island. Amid the fogs 
and rains and snows of the next two weeks this moun- 



EXCURSIONS ON THE COAST OF GREENLAND. 83 

tain outline was destined to fix itself in our memories 
in innumerable aspects which could never be forgotten. 
The interest of the scene was enhanced by the squalor 
of the igloos of the Eskimo in the foreground. Of 
these there were only three, occupied by twenty-five 
people. They consisted simply of walls of stone and 
turf about twenty feet square and three and a half feet 





ggfS 



Fig. 22.— A typical igloo. 

high, covered over with a slightly conical turf roof, 
through which, in one or two of the cases, a stovepipe 
protruded, for use on the occasions when a fire was built 
in the sheet-iron cylinder which served for a stove in- 
side ; but the turf is usually so wet that most of the 
time a fire is entirely out of the question. 

The squalid condition of the igloos was partly due 
to a flood which had swept over the village in the spring. 
How a flood could have risen in such a situation it was 



84 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

difficult for us to see, but the fact had to be accepted, 
for the ruins of an igloo in which two or three of the in- 
mates were drowned was a mute but constant witness to 
the sad event, and the vivid memories of the poor sur- 
vivors enabled them to make us understand the story 
even when told in an unknown language, so expressive 
were their gestures and pantomimes. In August a small 
stream of pure water from the melting masses of snow 
which still lingered in the low, rocky mountain rising 
above the settlement on the east rushed merrily down 
past the place, furnishing an unfailing supply for sum- 
mer use. But it seems that when the deep snows were 
rapidly melting in the spring this channel became so 
clogged with masses of snow and ice that the water de- 
serted its natural bed, and in a manner which seemed 
incredible rushed directly across the neck of the low 
peninsula to the opposite side from that of the natural 
depression. The possibility of such a destructive flood 
in such a situation gave us an idea of the accumulation 
of snow in. the winter which we could not otherwise have 
obtained. It would seem that during most of the win- 
ter the snow is so deep that the igloos entirely disap- 
pear beneath it. The entrances to them must then have 
looked still more like burrows than in the summer. 

Notwithstanding this forbidding exterior of the vil- 
lage, we found the inhabitants the best of neighbours, 
faithfully practising both the outward observances and 
the moralities of the Christian religion which had been 
taught them by their Danish protectors. One of their 
number acted as catechist, and conducted regular Sun- 
day services in the largest of the igloos, and all the 
adults could read and write, though their outward garb 
was the traditional one which had characterized the peo- 
ple from the earliest times. In another chapter will be 



EXCURSIONS ON THE COAST OF GREENLAND. 85 

found a description both of them and of the Sunday 
service which it was our privilege here to attend. 

The fiord which we planned to explore extends eight 
miles inland from the point on which we were encamped, 
and is from two to three miles wide, though from the 
clearness of the atmosphere it was difficult to make 
either of these distances seem half so great. The sol- 
emn grandeur of the scenery exceeded anything which 
it had been our privilege elsewhere to behold. The 
mountains rose on either side to a height of something 
more than four thousand feet, which, indeed, is not so 
high as may be found in many other parts of the world ; 
but the interest is not exhausted in the consideration 
of any single feature of the scene. Opposite to the en- 
trance of the fiord was the picturesque outline of the 
peaks capping the island of Sermersut, which alone sepa- 
rated us from the waters of the ocean, while at the head 
of the fiord a broad projection from the inland ice-sheet 
came down on both sides of a high mountain peak to 
the water's level and broke off into icebergs, which were 
slowly floating outward toward the sea. 

Nothing could be more striking than the contrast 
between the opposite sides of the fiord. The flanks of 
the mountains on the south side, facing the north, were 
deeply covered with snowfields and furrowed with gla- 
ciers. Above the snowfields a series of sharp needle-like 
peaks projected just enough to give savage variety to 
the scene. On this flank the local glaciers presented 
an object lesson most perfect of its kind. A series of 
glaciers approached the water level at the base of the 
mountain to distances approximately proportionate to 
that separating them from the ice front at the head 
of the fiord. Near the entrance was one coming down 
to within about one thousand feet of the water level. 



36 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

Farther east was one reaching to within about five hun- 
dred feet of the level. Farther east, still another came 
to within about three hundred feet; while still nearer 
and within about half a mile of the main projection 
of the ice front was one extending to the water's edge, 
and sending off miniature icebergs to aid in cumbering 
the waters of the fiord. 

A singular feature of all these glaciers on the slope of 
the mountain on the south side is that when viewed from 
the head of the fiord they seem to be much thicker near 
the bottom of the mountain than they are at the higher 
part of their levels. This appears in the photograph 
taken from a point two or three miles back from the 
front of the glacier which comes in at the head of the 
fiord. From all these glaciers fragments were occasion- 
ally breaking off and falling into the water with their 
customary loud reports, which echoed from cliff to cliff, 
like the bombardment of a stronghold by modern artil- 
lery. 

The mountains rising from the north side of the 
fiord and facing the south presented a most striking con- 
trast to those on the south side. They were of as great 
height, and were equally picturesque in their outline, 
but from them the direct rays of the summer's sun had 
caused the glaciers to melt and green verdure to spring 
up wherever any soil was preserved. There were no 
trees, or shrubs even, but at frequent intervals the rug- 
ged ribs of rock which form the larger part of the 
mountain side were interrupted by the richest imagi- 
nable masses of green moss and matted blaeberry vines 
clinging to the sides where to the eye it would seem 
that everything living must have been swept downward 
by its own weight. On nearer approach every nook and 
corner was found to be full of most brilliant and beauti- 



EXCURSIONS ON THE COAST OF GREENLAND. 87 

fal flowers, which had been waiting through countless 
generations for some visitor to appreciate their signifi- 
cance and beauty. 

About tw T o thirds of the distance up the fiord there 
was a favourite haunt of various kinds of birds. At the 
time of our visit kittiwakes were there in countless 
numbers. The perpendicular precipices, for a mile or 
more in length and more than a thousand feet in height, 
were completely covered with their nests wherever there 
was a crag upon which they could be built. Indeed, the 
face of the cliffs was white with these birds as they 
struggled with each other to secure places for temporary 
rest, while the neighbouring waters were covered with 
those who were seeking for food or were enjoying the 
luxury of a cold bath. The firing of our guns would be 
the signal for the whole colony to rise into the air, when 
it would seem as if a cloud had suddenly cut us off from 
the sunlight, while the sound of their strange voices, 
whose note is imitated in their name, filled the air and 
completed a scene that can not be equalled in interest 
outside of Greenland. 

With all the apparent unpropitiousness of Nature in 
this place, there is much to attract the natives, who 
know how to utilize its advantages. The three requi- 
sites for the existence and comfort of the native Green- 
lander are here easily obtained. Fish of various kinds 
come in their season, and literally wait to be caught in 
the vicinity of convenient projecting rocks. When we 
were there it was the season of cod, which could at any 
time be obtained almost without effort. Native boys, 
with the most primitive hooks and lines and almost no 
bait at all, would stand on a rocky projection and draw 
out from the water enough for a meal in an incredibly 
short time. Numerous piles of fish which had been 



EXCURSIONS ON THE COAST OF GREENLAND. 89 

dried and stored up for later use betokened the liberal 
precautions which Providence has taken to secure suste- 
nance for the people. 

The birds of which we have spoken, with two or 
three other kinds (the ptarmigan, the auk, and the eider 
duck), are easily caught and are most serviceable in 
various ways. A kayaker can go out at any time during 
the nesting season and load his boat without the aid of 
firearms. With his noiseless kayak he can approach 
near enough to the flocks as they are resting on the 
water to secure any number with his primitive spear 
pointed with sharpened bone. Indeed, he is rather 
more sure of his game with his spear than he would be 
with a gun, for the noise of firearms frightens the 
whole flock, wdiereas with his spear and kayak he can 
steal upon them almost unperceived. Large numbers, 
also, can be obtained from the rocks within reach of the 
kayaker from his boat. The eggs likewise form no in- 
significant addition to the natives' larder, while the 
skins furnish them with the warmest of clothing. These 
are tanned with the down and feathers on and sewed 
together into undergarments or made into quilts with 
which to defy the rigour of even an arctic winter. 

In due season, also, the various kinds of seal visit 
these waters, and supply the native hunter w 7 ith mate- 
rial for covering his kayak and umiak, and for making 
his waterproof boots and trousers, and with abundant 
fat for his lamp and for his own stomach, made vora- 
cious by his exposure to the keen storms of winter. Al- 
together it is not surprising that the natives look upon 
themselves as the special favourites of Providence. At 
any rate, they seem to receive their gifts more directly 
from Nature than do the inhabitants of the temperate 
zones. But this very circumstance leads them to limit 



90 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

their efforts to a narrow range of occupations, and 
stands in the way of their attaining any high stage of 
civilization. 

Two excursions to the head of the fiord were special- 
ly notable, both for their results and for the occasion 
they furnished to exhibit the characteristics of the 
Eskimo. On the first clear day which offered we set 
out on the smooth water of the fiord at full tide and 
pulled with all our might to reach the island which lies 
about two miles below the ice front of the main glacier. 
Five were in our dory, two of whom were natives, one 
being the catechist. Another boat similarly equipped 
accompanied us, while two or three kayaks went along 
of their own accord to collect a supply of birds from the 
loomery which we were to pass. The island was reached 
in due time, though it was a longer pull than we sup- 
posed it would be from the appearance in the clear 
atmosphere after a storm. From this island as a centre, 
the full beauty and impressiveness of the scene could be 
taken in as from no other place. The entire face of the 
front of the great glacier, two and a half miles wide, 
was exposed from this point, while all the hanging gla- 
ciers to the south were within near range of our vision, 
and were from time to time favouring us with a display 
of their power by sending avalanches of ice down the 
mountain side. After photographing the scenes from 
every point of view which this enchanting spot pre- 
sented, we entered our boat to proceed to the vicinity of 
the ice front. 

t But as soon as our Eskimos perceived that we were 
to go farther in that direction they both struck, and 
not only declined to use the oars themselves, but refused 
to allow us to use them to go in that direction. Their 
faces vividly showed the real terror they were in, which 



EXCURSIONS ON THE COAST OF GREENLAND. 91 

was so great that for a time we thought our plan would 
be completely frustrated. But one of the party, with 
the little native language at his command, succeeded in 
persuading the catechist that I was a very great and 
good man, when suddenly all fears were dispelled and 
both the natives set to work with right good will, and 
we were soon landed between the subglacial stream issu- 
ing from the south side of the great glacier and the 
upper one of the hanging glaciers which come down 
from the mountain to the water's edge. It was prob- 
ably the first time that any of the natives had ventured 
so far toward the ice front, for they have a deadly ter- 
ror of it. And, indeed, why should they not have? 
for there is nothing to induce them to venture so far, 
since they seem to have absolutely no scientific curiosity, 
and there is no game to be pursued upon the surface of 
the ice. It is little wonder, therefore, that the numer- 
ous ice falls and the resounding detonations accom- 
panying both them and the formation of crevasses fill 
their minds with dread of the mysterious powers here at 
work with such mighty effect. 

At a later time we proceeded directly to the same 
landing place below the southwestern corner of the gla- 
cier, and had no difficulty in prevailing upon our native 
helpers to venture to the spot ; but ujion our deciding 
to land above the subglacial stream, a little nearer the 
glacier, there was the same display of terror as before. 
I had to jump out in my high rubber boots almost to 
my waist in the ice-cold water, seize the rope, and pull 
the boat ashore against their most vigorous efforts to 
push it off with the oars. But when they saw that I 
had landed without any convulsion of Xature following, 
their fear was allayed, and all hands took hold to draw 
the boat into a place of safety. 



92 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

This, however, was no easy task, for it was evident 
from the pieces of ice stranded on the beach that the 
tide rose very high. This being the case, we did not 
object to having two or three of the natives remain by 
the boats while we spent the day upon the glacier. And 
it was well that they did stay by the stuff", for when we 
returned at the close of the day the water had risen so 
as to cover the vast sand bar over which we had hauled 
our boats and had invaded a considerable portion of the 
moraine to which we had taken them for security ; but 
our dusky companions had been faithful to their trust, 
and had patiently awaited our return and kept the 
boats in a place of safety.- They had also learned that 
their fears of the ice when properly approached were 
groundless. 

For half a mile along the southwest corner of the 
glacier the approach to the interior ice is up a gentle 
slope, which is deeply covered with morainic material. 
This can be approached at any time ; but, like the na- 
tives, we felt like giving a wide berth to the hanging 
glaciers on the south side of the fiord, and to the two 
miles and a half of perpendicular ice front which looked 
down upon the calm water at its head. 

The day upon the glacier was exhilarating in the 
extreme. After clambering over the crevasses and pin- 
nacles of ice which obstructed our course for the first 
half mile, we saw a clear way before us, between two 
medial moraines which came down from a high nuna- 
tak in the distance. While crossing one of these mo- 
raines, picking our way between its vast piles of stones, 
the two Eskimos who had accompanied us thus far 
began to lose their courage, and in the true native style 
attempted to disguise their real state of mind by calling 
attention to their boots, saying that they were "no 




; 



94 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

good," every once in a while uttering this ejaculation 
and pointing to their upturned soles with a despondent 
look. Of course we humoured them, and permitted 
them to sit down with some of our superfluous luggage 
to guard. Here they remained all day long, apparently 
not having stirred from their tracks until we hailed 
them on our return. 

We followed up the vast glacier to the nanatak, which 
proved to be fully seven miles back from the front and 
to about equally divide the vast ice streams which poured 
down on either side of it. The total width of the gla- 
cier we estimated to be here six or seven miles, and at 
the base of the nunatak we were not far from two thou- 
sand feet above sea level. Eastward there was nothing 
but the horizon to obstruct our view. We were looking 
out upon the same snowfields which had greeted our 
vision from Nukagpiak two weeks before, only now we 
were on the field itself. Then we had viewed it from 
the side, at right angles to our present vision. The 
imagination now came in, with its subtle power, to in- 
tensify the interest of the occasion. With the mind's 
eye there was nothing to hinder our looking across the 
whole vast waste of perpetual snow stretching to the 
east coast of Greenland. This was verily a part of the 
inland ice. 

Nor was the interest of the backward glance much 
less impressive. The glacier at the head of Ikamiut 
Fiord was only half of what was within our vision. The 
mountain upon the south side, whose hanging glaciers 
had so enchanted our vision from our camping place, 
divided the glacier we were exploring into two nearly 
equal portions. One half was pouring into the fiord on 
the south, through whose long vista we could distinctly 
see the distant islands in the bay of Sukkertoppen. At 



EXCURSIONS ON THE COAST OF GREENLAND. 95 

various distances along this fiord icebergs glittered in 
the light of the declining sun, showing that the ice front 
at the head of that fiord was similar to that in the one 
which we had more particularly investigated. 

As before remarked, these glaciers on the south side 
were all of them thicker near the base of the mountain 
than in their higher levels. Indeed, they seemed to run 
down like cold tar and to thicken at the base as a stiff 
semi-fluid would under the action of gravity. Usually 
the more rapid melting at lower levels causes the glacier 
to thin out near the foot, but here the temperature in the 
shade is so near the freezing point that the ice melts 
about as fast near the upper portions of the glaciers as 
it does at the base. 

Another phenomenon illustrating the nature of the 
movement going on in great glaciers was seen here to 
special advantage. Where the great ice-sheet abutted 
against the mountain which divided its front into two 
portions it was pushed up by the momentum of the 
movement so as to be two or three hundred feet higher 
at the base of the mountain than it was a mile back. 
Indeed, a half mile or so back there was a distinct de- 
pression in the glacier with the ice higher all around it. 
It was just such a depression as is made where a current 
of water is obstructed by some obstacle ; the current 
pushes some distance up the obstruction, and then 
breaks over the sides to go around it ; but ice, being 
much less fluid than water, moves off in larger swells and 
more gradual curves. 

But even an arctic afternoon has its close. With re- 
gret we sought our boats and set out on the return, to go 
again through the magnificent panorama of the morn- 
ing. The day had been one never to be forgotten. 
With its pure air making everything clear within the 



96 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

range of vision ; with the consciousness that you are 
treading where other human feet have probably never 
trod, and are looking on scenes that few, if any, others 
will ever see ; amid a solitude that is unbroken by liv- 
ing objects except here and there a passing bird or a 
wary fox, whose tracks surprised us on the newly fallen 
snow ; with gurgling streams of purest water from the 
melting ice all about us hastening in channels of deep- 
est blue to plunge at last with deafening roar into some 
mysterious moulin, the senses were overburdened with 
material for the imagination to seize upon and work up 
into pictures of scientific form and poetic fancy. We 
tried in vain to answer the question which involuntarily 
arose, Why is there so much waste of beauty and gran- 
deur so far beyond the reach of ordinary mortals? 

The Danish artist A. Riis Cartensen enjoyed the 
privilege of joining Captain Jensen's surveying party, 
which spent the summer of 1884 in the region just be- 
yond that explored by us. A single extract, describing 
a fiord a short distance north of Ikamiut, furnishes a 
fitting supplement to the descriptions which we have 
given. 

" The 23d, at noon, we rested on an island in the en- 
trance to a fiord, and the same evening we camped at 
its farther end. Though the whole length of the fiord 
was only some twenty-two miles, it surpassed anything 
we had yet seen in bold mountain scenery. 

" It was not unlike the mouth of an immense carniv- 
orous animal, whose teeth were mountains some four 
to five thousand feet high. As the boat proceeded the 
scenery changed, and the eye was attracted from one 
picture to another seeming to surpass it; but it was 
after having landed on the farthermost shore that the 
landscape became altogether imposing. The air was 



v\ 




98 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

transparent and calm. In the west the waters merged 
into the sky, both resembling an endless space wherein 
hills, trees, or islands were reflected as distinctly, both 
in outline and colour, as the objects they were a natural 
picture of, forming floating masses whose distance from 
the eye it was impossible to define, looking near and at 
the same time very far. 

" A green birch forest was in the shadow on the plain 
where our tent was erected, and beyond that mountains 
of five thousand feet rose abruptly. Their summits, 
golden with the rays of the low sun, contrasted strongly 
with the deep blue sky, and, as though to remind us of 
the northern latitude of the spot, the ice in their clefts 
glittered with a force that emphasized the depth of col- 
our. A mysterious sound floated in the air. It came 
from some waterfalls, with clouds of spray flying over 
the vigorous greensward at their feet. Never have I 
beheld a place coming nearer to the idea which I im- 
agine that our forefathers entertained at Valhalla. Here 
was the very eternal day of Valhalla, being unlike the 
fleeting one of earth in that the subdued light of mid- 
night heightened the mysteriousness of the place. I was 
almost surprised at not meeting the old heroes in per- 
son. It would have seemed nothing less than natural 
on my wanderings that night, and more than once did 
it occur that I suddenly fancied I heard the clash and 
clang of swords; but it was only the music of the cas- 
cades, and I had to console myself with the persuasion 
that the doings of spirits were invisible and inaudible to 
my profane senses." * 

* A. Riis Carstensen, Two Summers in Greenland, pp. 53, 54. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE COAST IK DETAIL. 

Beginkikg at the southernmost point of Greenland, 
about latitude 60°, which corresponds to that of Cape 
Chidley in Labrador, and to that of the Shetland Is- 
lands, Christiania, and St. Petersburg in Europe, Danish 
Greenland upon the west coast is divided into twelve 
districts, which we will briefly describe in order : * 

1. Julianshaab extends in a west-northwest direc- 
tion through five degrees of longitude and one of lati- 
tude, and has about eighteen hundred square miles of 
territory uncovered by ice. The most of this, however, 
consists of inaccessible and barren mountains (some 
of which are from four to five thousand feet high), 
capped with local glaciers. Eight or ten fiords extend 
to the inlaiid ice and receive a few icebergs of small 
size, while the glacier to the east of the most northern 
sound, Ikersuak, is set down by Rink among those of the 
third class, which sends off a considerable number of 
bergs. In general, however, the edge of the inland ice 
is at a less distance from the sea in this district than in 
any other for a thousand miles northward. But this 
does not prevent the vegetation from being more abun- 
dant and the general conditions from being more favour- 

* In this we can not avoid following largely the descriptions 
of Rink. 

99 



100 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

able to civilized life than those found anywhere else in 
Greenland. 

The district of Julianshaab constitutes what was 
known in the earliest history of Greenland as the Oster- 
bygd, or Eastern Settlement, which was so long thought 
by some to be situated on the east coast. Much useless 
effort was therefore spent in endeavouring to discover 
an " eastern settlement," which did not exist. But it is 
now generally acknowledged that the early Norse settle- 
ments were here, and that they are now marked by va- 
rious ruins in the vicinity of the ice front extending 
through nearly the whole length of the district. Among 
the most important of the ruins are those along the fiord 
east of Julianshaab leading to Igaliko, a distance of 
about twenty-five miles. At Igaliko the ruins are well 
preserved, and traces of a bridge remain. This is sup- 
posed to have been a bishop's farm during the flourish- 
ing condition of the Norse settlement. A few miles to 
the north the border is penetrated by Eric's Fiord, 
along which remains are numerous, eight settlements 
having been traced, in one of which there are the ruins 
of a church. Indeed, this locality seems to have been 
the most flourishing of all the Norse settlements, and is 
still capable of supporting a few cattle, there being in 
all from thirty to forty horned cattle, one hundred goats, 
and twenty sheep here at the present time, but during 
the Norse settlements there is the record of a consider- 
able dependence upon cows and sheep for the means of 
sustenance. 

This district contained in 1870 a population of 
twenty-five hundred and seventy, distributed into be- 
tween fifty and sixty settlements, the largest of which 
contained two hundred and twenty-three, but nearly all 
of them less than one hundred. About one thousand 



THE COAST IN DETAIL. 1Q1 

of the natives belong to Moravian communities, whose 
central station is Lichtenau. This district is reported 
by Rink to yield about three hundred tons of oil and 
four thousand seal skins annually, aud to furnish one 
third of the fox skins exported from Greenland. The 
most southern Moravian settlement is at Frederiksdal, 
which was established in 1824 for the sake of reaching 
the few heathen Eskimos from the eastern coast which 
annually come as far as this for trade. It was here that 
the crew of the Hansa ended their memorable journey 
along the east coast in the year 1870.* Frederiksdal is 
within two hours' walk of the most southern point of 
Greenland, Cape Farewell being on an island about 
thirty miles off the coast. 

2. The Frederikshaab district extends from about 
latitude 61° to 62° 30', the border running a little west 
of north. The average width of the land uncovered by 
ice is about thirty miles, and the highest mountains run 
up to four thousand feet, these being the ones sighted 
by us on August 3d. At both the southern and the 
northern end of this district the interior ice comes down 
almost to the open sea. In the southern part there are 
enormous precipices facing the sea, which, with the ab- 
sence of interior channels, makes it difficult for small 
boats to pass from the south. According to Rink, there 
are seven fiords in this district through which the inland 
ice reaches the water, one of the glaciers being of the 
second magnitude, and another of the third. 

The population numbers about eight hundred, dis- 
tributed in fifteen settlements, only one of which, Fred- 
erikshaab, has more than one hundred. Ivigtut is noted 
for its cryolite mines, which are chiefly worked by Eu- 

* See page 62. 



THE COAST IN DETAIL. 103 

ropeans, and the larger part of the products exported to 
Philadelphia. Between Ivigtut and Frederikshaab trav- 
elling by small boats is pre-eminently dangerous, both on 
account of the unsheltered condition of the shore and 
of the great number of icebergs which come out of Nar- 
salik Fiord. The Frederikshaab ice blink forms the 
northern boundary of this district. The inland ice 
here projects in a tongue several miles wide over a low 
strip of land almost to the open sea, being separated 
from it only by its own terminal moraine, which is in- 
tersected by numerous streams of water which issue 
from beneath the glacier, and find their way to the sea 
by whatever course they can. This also is a difficult 
place to pass in a small open boat. It was up this por- 
tion of the inland ice that Lars Dalager set out upon 
his expedition toward the east Greenland coast in 1751, 
but only succeeded in reaching some nunataks about 
twenty miles from the shore. On the horizon were still 
other mountains, which he was unable to reach, and 
which he supposed might be on the eastern shore. It 
was not until 1878 that this illusion was dispelled. In 
that year Jensen and Kornerup visited them, and found 
them to be simply isolated mountain peaks rising from 
a boundless waste of glacial ice. Many interesting facts 
concerning these nunataks will appear in a later chap- 
ter, giving a more detailed account of the exploration 
of the inland ice. 

But while upon the subject, a few words may here 
well be added concerning Hoist's observations along the 
border of the Frederikshaab ice blink. Dr. Hoist, of 
Stockholm, in the summer of 1880 skirted the whole 
coast from Sukkertoppen to Ivigtut in a small boat, 
making many important observations which had escaped 
the eyes of other explorers. Among the most significant 



104 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

of these was the discovery of a moraine about twelve 
miles long and from half a mile to more than a mile 
in width, extending along the southern side of the 
great glacier where it approaches the sea. This great 
mass of morainic material still rests upon ice which has 
not yet thawed away, but which has melted so unequally 
that it presents a remarkable series of hills and valleys 
fifty or more feet high, while the moraine covering does 
not average more than one or two feet in thickness.* 

The ice blink in this region can be seen far out 
to sea, and presents a more imposing appearance than 
along any other portion of the coast until one reaches 
the far north. The slope is here so gradual, and the 
mountain chain along the border so interrupted that 
there is nothing to interfere with the vision, so that 
the eye is permitted to wander over the ice-covered 
slope to the very limit of the horizon. 

3. The Godthaab district extends from latitude 
62° 50' to 64° 50'. In the southern part the distance to 
the inland ice is not great, but gradually increases to 
about seventy miles in the extreme north. The coast 
is everywhere bordered by numerous islands, which 
afford protection to small boats as they navigate the 
waters. Several large fiords penetrate the borderland 
to the inland ice. The one known as Baal's River, at 
whose mouth the town of Godthaab is situated, has a 
length of seventy-five miles, and branches off into sev- 
eral minor fiords, each of which ends in a glacier of con- 
siderable size, and furnishes its quota of small icebergs. 
The current which characterizes the river, however, is 
not so much due to the supply of water from the sub- 
glacial streams as to the effect of the tide. 

* See American Naturalist, vol. xxii, p. 707. 



THE COAST IN DETAIL. 105 

To the north of this inlet the land is much lower 
than upon the south, and affords much good pasturing 
ground for reindeer. South of the fiord the islands rise 
to a height of four thousand feet in the near vicinity, 
but gradually diminish in prominence at greater dis- 
tances. Nansen, in his famous journey across southern 
Greenland, came out at the head of Ameralik Fiord, 
which reaches the ocean a little south of Baal's River. 
Sadlen Mountain, or the Saddleback, near Godthaab, is 
one of the most conspicuous landmarks along the coast, 
being distinctly visible on a clear day from Sukkertop- 
pen, sixty-five or seventy miles away. 

The population of the Godthaab district is about one 
thousand, distributed in fourteen settlements, no one of 
which has one hundred and fifty inhabitants, though 
Godthaab is the capital of southern Greenland, where, 
besides the officials, there are both Danish and Moravian 
missionaries, and a seminary for the instruction of na- 
tive catechists and teachers. Here, also, is the residence 
of the royal inspector and the physician of southern 
Greenland. Along the inner portion of Baal's Eiver, 
thirty or forty miles back from the sea, there are numer- 
ous ruins of the early Norse settlements ; this, in fact, 
being the Westerbygd, or the Western Settlement of the 
early historians. Here there were reported to have been 
ninety farms and two churches ; but from the small size 
of the ruins of the houses — none of them being larger 
than sixteen by forty feet — it is probable that the inhab- 
itants could only have been a few hundred. Here, also, 
as in the Eastern Settlement and elsewhere on the west- 
ern coast, the climate is much milder in the vicinity of 
the ice border than on the coast itself. The islands 
along the coast for forty miles uorth of Godthaab are 
favourite resorts of the eider duck, and they are so situ- 



106 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

ated as to collect an unusually large amount of drift- 
wood, upon which the prosperity of the native popula- 
tion so much depends. 

4. Sukkertoppen, the next district, extends from 
latitude 64° 50' to 66° 10', presenting throughout its 
whole length a line of precipitous and lofty headlands, 
some of them rising to a height of four thousand feet, 
and many of them being upward of three thousand. 
Four fiords penetrate the border to the inland ice, 
namely, Isortok, Ikamiut, Kangerdlugsuatsiak, and 
Kangerdlugsuak, each extending a distance of from 
forty to fifty miles back from the sea.* 

The population of the district is about eight hun- 
dred, distributed in six settlements, of which the largest 
— Sukkertoppeu, containing about four hundred — is 
also the largest in Greenland. This district is one of 
the most favoured for the capture of codfish and the 
collection of eider down. The reindeer pastures, also, 
were formerly among the most important in Greenland. 
The South Stromfiord, which forms the northern bound- 
ary of the district of Sukkertoppen, is characterized by 
tidal currents of great violence, rendering it almost im- 
possible for boats to cross except at the turn of the 
tide. It seems also to be a barrier to the migration of 
the saddleback seals, which are much more numerous 
to the south of it than to the north. 

5. Holsteinborg extends from latitude 66° 10' to 
67° 40', and comprises a portion of the outskirts which 

* Like all Eskimo names, these are significant. Isortok means 
(as before remarked) " having muddy water " : Ikamiut, " an un- 
sheltered bay.'' Another name for this second inlet is Agpamiut, 
meaning "place of the auk," on account of the loomeries already 
described. The other two names are general words for fiords 
bounded by steep promontories. 



108 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

is wider between the coast and the inland ice than 
any other, being about eighty miles upon the average. 
Three or four fiords extend inland to a considerable dis- 
tance, but not far enough to reach the ice cap. The 
surface of the country is much lower than that farther 
south, and in former times furnished the best of all pas- 
tures in Greenland for the reindeer. North Stromfiord, 
which bounds it upon the north, extends through to the 
inland ice and, as already remarked, separates south 
from north Greenland. 

The population of the district is about five hundred 
and fifty, distributed in nine settlements. The village 
of Holsteinborg is just within the arctic circle, and its 
harbour is one of the best upon the Greenland coast, 
there being here a beach upon which ships can run in 
high tide and undergo repairs when the tide is out. 
Holsteinborg is the most southern point where the con- 
ditions permit the use of sledge dogs, a few of which 
are found here. The whale fishery, which used to be 
profitable, is now almost wholly abandoned. 

6. Egedesmixde is the most southern district of 
north Greenland, and extends from latitude 67° 40' to 
Disco Bay, a distance of about sixty miles. In character 
the country is much like that of Holsteinborg, but it is 
more cut up by fiords, which are separated from each 
other by portages so short that umiaks can easily be 
transported by inland passages from north to south. 
Aulatsivik Fiord reaches the inland ice at the point 
from which Nordenskjold made both his excursions into 
the interior. 

The population of this district is about one thou- 
sand, distributed in twenty-two settlements. In the 
winter there is good dog-sledging along the edge of 
Disco Bay, which greatly facilitates communication. 



THE COAST IN DETAIL. 109 

Eider ducks are here specially abundant, and codfish 
and halibut are caught in large quantities, while the 
walrus is by no means infrequent. 

7. Chhistias'SHAab occupies the narrow strip of 
coast around the southeast angle of Disco Bay, extend- 
ing as far north as Jakobshavn. 

The width of the land in this district is only be- 
tween twenty and thirty miles, while the highest moun- 
tains here are not over fourteen hundred feet, making 
it the easiest point from which to reach the inland ice. 
Vegetation is peculiarly luxuriant throughout this dis- 
trict, notwithstanding the proximity both of the coast 
and the inland ice. But Disco Bay is so narrow that it 
may almost be reckoned as a fiord, giving to this region 
the climatic conditions of the inner portion of the " out- 
skirts" farther south. 

The population of the district is about five hundred, 
distributed in eight settlements, of which Claushavn, 
the largest, has one hundred and twenty-seven. The 
catch of seal is here obtained almost wholly amid the 
large icebergs which come out from the Jakobshavn 
Glacier. The settlement at Christianshaab was made 
by a son of Hans Egede in 1734. The house built by 
him is still inhabitable, and is situated at the foot of a 
hill which is said " in July to be beautifully covered 
with blue and yellow flowers," while crowberries and 
blaeberries are abundant even up to a height of over a 
thousand feet above the sea. 

8. Jakobshavn" extends from the fiord of that 
name to the fiord of Torsukatak, latitude 70°, and lies 
wholly in the rear of Disco Island. The population num- 
bers a little over four hundred, distributed in ten settle- 
ments. Seal are especially abundant in Jakobshavn 
Fiord, through which there is a constant procession of 



HO GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

great icebergs from the magnificent glacier at its head. 
This is the glacier which was studied so carefully by 
Helland in the summer of 1875, and whose motion in 
the central part he found to be about sixty-five feet per 
day. One iceberg observed by Helland in Jakobshavn 
Fiord rose three hundred and ninety-six feet above the 
water. The annual amount of ice carried away in the 
bergs of this fiord is estimated by Helland to be between 
2,900,000,000 and 5,800,000,000 cubic metres. The 
calving of these bergs is one of the most impressive 
scenes which it is possible to imagine. We quote a con- 
densed account by Helland : 

" Without any previous indication, a tremendous 
roaring noise was heard, while at the same time a white 
dust was seen to rise and a large piece of the glacier 
was detached from its outer edge, which, after hav- 
ing rolled for some moments in the water, reared its 
edge in the air, but almost instantly the pinnacle top of 
this edge burst asunder and crumbled while falling. 
The calving having thus commenced, it was instantly 
followed by a much larger piece being detached and 
issuing from the middle part of the glacier at the rate 
of one metre per second. But the extensive bouleverse- 
ments which now ensued made it impossible to discern 
the number and size of the larger bergs which were 
formed out of this portion of the glacier, because clouds 
of dust now arose in different places, and the floating 
bergs in the vicinity were also put in motion, rolling 
and calving. It was more than half an hour before the 
whole scene again was calm and the thundering noise 
which had accompanied the disturbances had sub- 
sided."* 

* See Rink's Danish Greenland, p. 364. 



THE COAST IN DETAIL. m 

9. Godhayn" comprises the southern and western 
shores of Disco Island, and its principal trading station, 
officially known also as Godhavn, but called by the Eng- 
lish sailors Lievely, is the point most frequently visited 
by explorers and whalers on their way farther north. 
The island of Disco contains an area of about two thou- 
sand square miles, the most of which is a tableland from 
two thousand to four thousand feet above the sea, and 
enveloped in perpetual snow and ice. This area is large- 
ly covered with beds of basalt and sandstone, greatly in 
contrast with the rocks of southern Greenland, which 
are wholly granitic in their character. Extensive beds 
of coal also occur. 

The population numbers about two hundred and 
fifty, distributed in seven settlements. There are but 
few harbours on the island, and in winter the bay is not 
frozen over with sufficient permanence to render sledg- 
ing at all safe, making the isolation extreme during 
that portion of the year. 

10. Kitexbexk occupies both sides of Waigat 
Strait, which separates Disco Island from Xugsuak 
Peninsula on the north. The land upon this penin- 
sula rises to a height of seven thousand feet, and the 
Waigat is bordered upon both sides by precipitous walls 
from three thousand to four thousand feet high. The 
population numbers about four hundred and fifty, dis- 
tributed in eight settlements. At the extreme end of 
Nugsuak Peninsula there is situated the only ancient 
Norse ruin in north Greenland. It is of stone, about 
ten feet long and six feet broad, and is built with a skill 
far greater than any ever attained by the Eskimos. 

The highest mountains of western Greenland are 
found in the vicinity of Disco and Umanak, and the 
rocks are of much more recent geological formation 
9 



112 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

than in the southern part, including extensive areas of 
sandstone, shale, and basalt of Cretaceous and Tertiary 
age. Over this area the mountain masses, reaching a 
height of five thousand feet, are tabular in form and. 
rise to their summits by a series of terraces. Granitic 
rocks in some instances occur at the base, but in the 
sandstone strata the edges of extensive coal beds appear. 
In these, many trunks of tall trees, according to Kink, 
" are still standing upright, with the remains of their 
roots inserted in the very soil that gave growth to them. 
. . . Perfect and complete impressions of leaves have 
been discovered in abundance in the surrounding rocks. 
Fruits, seeds, and even remains of insects are among 
these striking proofs of an ancient flora and fauna 
which to all appearances must have required a climate 
like that of middle Europe at the present day. The 
coal beds also afford a striking evidence of the igneous 
origin of the superincumbent trap which on bursting 
out made its way through the said deposits. The coal 
is distinctly seen to have been altered in various de- 
grees by the heat from the melted masses. In one 
instance a small trap eruption crosses and spreads over 
a thin coal bed for some extent. The coal in immedi- 
ate contact with the volcanic rock was found to be total- 
ly deprived of its volatile bituminous ingredients and 
changed into coke. In another place a coal bed was 
found converted into anthracite ; and, lastly, a most re- 
markable bed of graphite has been dis6overed which 
leaves no doubt of its having originated in the same 
way, the heating and metamorphosing action having 
here reached a higher degree of intensity." * 

The basalt beds in this region, occupying an area of 

* Danish Greenland, pp. 77, 78. 



THE COAST IN DETAIL. H3 

about five thousand square miles, are mostly horizontal 
and from fifty to one hundred feet in thickness, and are 
separated from each other by sheets of reddish clay and 
tufa containing angular fragments of lava. It is this 
alternation of structure which occasions the terraced 
appearance of the mountain sides of the region. Ac- 
cording to Rink also, these volcanic rocks " show a series 
of varieties gradually passing from the granular or crys- 
talline to a more compact basaltic texture, with a tend- 
ency at the same time to become vesicular or even 
spongy, so as to assume the appearance of true lava." * 

Geologically the coal beds of Greenland are much 
later than the Carboniferous period. The accompany- 
ing plants indicate that some of them belong to the 
Upper Cretaceous and others to the Middle Tertiary 
(Miocene). " Of the first, two subdivisions have been 
observed, of which the lower contained fifty-six species 
of plants, among which nineteen are ferns and nine 
cycadeae. The Tertiary group is most beautifully dis- 
played at Atanekerdluk (mainland, 70° north latitude), 
the number of species determined amounting to one 
hundred and sixty nine. The sandstone beds with their 
subordinate beds have a thickness of several hundred, ris- 
ing even to two thousand, but not exceeding twenty-five 
hundred feet. In following them along the shores they 
are not always found to contain coal beds, but always 
layers of claystone and slate. Large pieces of fossil 
wood are scattered over the Asakak Glacier near Uma- 
nak." f 

The Tertiary beds in this region bear striking wit- 
ness to the changes of climate which the region has ex- 
perienced, and to the fact that there is a lineal connec- 

* Danish Greenland, p. 386. f Ibid., pp. 384, 3S5. 



114 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

tion between the present flora of the north temperate 
zone and the ancient arctic flora of Greenland. During 
the middle portion of the Tertiary period the climate of 
north Greenland corresponded closely with that which 
now exists in Virginia and North Carolina. As enu- 
merated by Asa Gray, the familiar plants found in these 
beds comprise " magnolias, sassafras, hickories, gum 
trees, our identical southern cypress (for all we can see 
of difference), and especially sequoias — not only the two 
which obviously answer to the two big trees now pecul- 
iar to California, but several others ; they equally com- 
prise trees now peculiar to Japan and China — three 
kinds of gingko trees, for instance, one of them not 
evidently distinguishable from the Japan species which 
alone survives. We have evidence not merely of pines 
and maples, birches, lindens, and whatever characterize 
the temperate-zone forests of our era, but also of partic- 
ular species of these so like those of our own time and 
country that we may fairly reckon them as ancestors of 
several of ours." * 

11. Umanak is the district occupying the peninsu- 
las and islands surrounding the broad fiord or bay of 
that name, and which extends from about 70° 45' to 71° 
45'. Into this bay two glaciers of the first magnitude 
pour their vast volumes of ice, which is increased by 
that of several others of smaller magnitude. The gen- 
eral character of ISTugsuak Peninsula upon the south is 
like that of Disco Island, basalt and sandstone abound- 
ing on the high table-lands. The bay of Umanak affords 
the best opportunities for seal hunting anywhere along 
the coast. The number of inhabitants is about eight 
hundred, distributed in fifteen settlements. In winter 

* Scientific Papers of Asa Gray, vol. ii, p. 227. 



THE COAST IN DETAIL. 115 

the water is frozen over, so that travel by dog sledges is 
safe, rendering that season of the year by no means 
undesirable. 

Umanak Fiord furnishes a good proportion of the 
icebergs which find their way south with the Labrador 
current. 

12. Uperxivik extends from Umanak Fiord to 
Tasiusak, latitude 73° 24', the most northern trading 
point in Danish Greenland. The peninsula Swarte- 
Huk, comprising the larger part of the territory, is but 
little known. In the vicinity of the settlement of Uper- 
nivik the inland ice comes down to the water in a mag- 
nificent glacier, which was found by the Swedish survey- 
ors to be moving in the month of August at the rate of 
a hundred feet per day. In winter the sun is seventy- 
nine days below the horizon in this latitude, and there 
is no communication with the outside world except by a 
single ship in the summer and a single sledge post 
which comes up from Umanak Fiord in winter. 

From Upernivik to» Cape York in a direct line is 
about two hundred and fifty miles, but following the 
shores of Melville Bay, forming the two other sides of 
the triangle, the distance is nearly twice as great. This 
part of Greenland is almost as little explored and as 
difficult of approach as that in the extreme north. Ev- 
erywhere the ice seems to come down to the water's 
edge, and the ice pack in the bay is so irregular in move- 
ment that it is the great terror of navigators. The 
Devil's Thumb is a peculiar landmark in the vicinity of 
Tasiusak, two thousand or three thousand feet high, 
which is usually the last land seen until the promontory 
of Cape York conies into view, in about latitude 76°. 
So far as known, the shores of Melville Bay are uninhab- 
itable both to men and to animals. 



116 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

But from Cape York northward to Littleton Island, 
in Smith Sound, numerous bays indent the coast, and 
areas of considerable extent are free from snow in sum- 
mer, so that a few musk oxen and reindeer can maintain 
existence. Accompanying these, and depending largely 
upon them, are a few hundred heathen Eskimos, about 
whom little was known until Kane's contact with them 
in the winter of 1853, when they befriended him and did 
much to save his party from destruction. Subsequent 
expeditions have confirmed the good impression which 
Kane received. 

Inglefield Gulf, setting back into the interior from 
Whale Sound, between latitude 77° and 78°, has been 
the centre from which Peary has set out upon his expe- 
ditions for the survey of the northern coast of Green- 
land. In general this gulf is bordered by promontories 
one thousand or two thousand feet in height, from 
whose base the snow melts off in summer ; but at seven 
or eight points the coast line is interrupted by fiordlike 
depressions through which projections from the inland 
ice reach the water level and send off a limited number 
of small icebergs. The most of these glaciers, however, 
are very sluggish in their movements as compared with 
those in southern Greenland. 

Humboldt Glacier, discovered by Kane, enters Kane 
Basin beyond Smith Sound, its perpendicular front oc- 
cupying nearly the whole space between latitude 79° 
and 80°. In Peary's first expedition from Inglefield 
Gulf he encountered considerable difficulty from the 
fact that the route chosen was so near the Humboldt 
Glacier that his progress was obstructed by the cre- 
vasses occasioned by the movement of ice toward it. To 
escape the difficulty he went farther into the interior, 
where he had no more trouble. 



THE COAST IN DETAIL. 117 

Large glaciers come into Kennedy Channel through 
Petermann's Fiord, in latitude 81°, and others still 
larger into Sherard Osborne Fiord, in latitude 82°. 

In 1882 Lockwood and Brainard, of Greely's party, 
reached the highest point yet attained by any one, in 
latitude 83° 24', but at a season of the year when little 
could be determined concerning the nature of the coun- 
try. Lieutenant Peary in 1892, however, after making 
a journey of five hundred miles across the inland ice in 
midsummer, came down upon the northeastern coast of 
Greenland, in latitude 82°, longitude 40° west from 
Greenwich, and surveyed the coast for a distance of 
seventy or eighty miles. He found conditions very 
similar to those in southern Greenland, namely, a line 
of promontories, rising in some cases to thirty-five hun- 
dred feet, between which there were numerous depres- 
sions down which great glaciers were moving northward 
into open water. This he called Independence Bay, 
which was bordered upon the north by a long stretch of 
high land free from snow upon the 4th of July. The 
Academy Glacier, moving northward into this bay, is 
several miles in width, and debouches into the water with 
all the characteristics of the glaciers described in Disco 
Bay and Umanak Fiord. On this northern border of 
Greenland, in midsummer, Peary was greeted by the 
sight of green grass and beautiful flowers and butterflies, 
and of herds of musk oxen revelling in the luxuriance ; 
and while lying down upon this carpet of beauty to rest, 
in the middle of the day, his ears were greeted with the 
familiar buzz of the bumblebee and the less pleasant 
hum of swarming mosquitoes, and this within five hun- 
dred miles of the north pole. 

As already said, the east coast of Greenland is much 
more inaccessible and much less known than the west 



118 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

coast. In 1822 Scoresby touched upon the east coast 
between latitude 74° and 75°, but it was not until 
1870 that any considerable extent of that part of it 
was explored. During that year Koldewey reached 
Cape Bismarck, about latitude 77°, and continued his 
course as far down as Cape Brewster, latitude 70°. No 
Eskimos were found along this portion of the coast, but 
numerous remains of deserted igloos occurred in various 
places, and large herds of musk oxen and reindeer were 
seen. Franz Josef Fiord penetrates the interior for 
nearly one hundred miles, and twenty or thirty miles 
farther westward Petermaun's Peak rises from the icy 
waste to a height of about eleven thousand feet, being 
the highest mountain yet discovered in Greenland. 

From latitude 70° to 65° scarcely anything is known 
of the condition of the border. The Spitzbergen ice 
pack is here so dense along the Greenland coast that 
access to the shore has never been obtained. Slight 
glimpses of it were obtained by the crew of the Hansa 
as they drifted past it upon the ice in the winter of 
1870, but nobody has succeeded in actually explor- 
ing it. 

From Cape Dan to Cape Farewell the coast is better 
known, having been explored in 1828 by Captain W. A. 
Graah, of the Danish Eoyal Navy, who was despatched 
thither to search for relics of the lost colonies in the 
East Bygd, which was then supposed to have been lo- 
cated upon that part of the coast. 

Captain Graah, setting out from Frederiksdal early 
in the spring, with native help succeeded in reaching 
Dannebrog's Island (latitude 65° 15') late in August, 
only a short distance south of Cape Dan; but the sea- 
son was so far advanced that he was compelled to spend 
the winter upon the coast, which he did at Nukarvik 



THE COAST IN DETAIU 119 

(latitude G3° 15'). Little lias since been learned in 
addition to Graah's account, though in 1884 Captain 
Holm reached Angmagsalik, a short distance north of 
Cape Dan, and spent the winter there with a colony of 
heathen Eskimos. Still later, Hansen, when released 
from the floe ice, went over a portion of the same terri- 
tory to find a suitable starting point for his famous 
journey across southern Greenland in 1888. From the 
description of these explorers it appears that the eastern 
coast has a much narrower belt free from ice than the 
western has, and is capable of supporting a much small- 
er population. There are now about five hundred Eski- 
mos along this coast, and it would not seem possible for 
the number to be materially increased. All these ex- 
plorers report an absence of reindeer from the region, 
and, indeed, a total ignorance of the animal on the part 
of the natives. This portion of the coast is beset with 
floe ice the whole year round, but does not seem to be 
much more encumbered with glaciers reaching the sea 
than is the west coast, the most formidable of these be- 
ing Puisortok, about latitude 62° — a glacier presenting 
about the same appearance to Graah as it did to Nansen 
sixty years later. 

Graah's description of the coast about the sound of 
Ekallumiut, where he wintered in latitude 63° 30', is 
worthy of reproduction. 

" August 30. The place we now were at was the 
Ekallumiut so often mentioned. The cove, the length 
of which is between one and two cable lengths, has on 
both sides of it, but particularly on the eastern, fields of 
considerable extent covered with dwarf willows, juniper- 
berry, black crakeberry, and whortleberry heath, the 
first-named growing to the height of two feet, and the 
whole interspersed with a good many patches of a fine 



120 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

species of grass, which, however, was very much burned 
by the heat of the sun, except in the immediate vicinity 
of the brooks and rivulets that in great number ran 
down the sides of the hill and intersected the level land 
in every direction. At the bottom of the cove stretches 
an extensive valley, through which runs a stream 
abounding in char [salmon] and having its source in 
the glaciers, of which several gigantic arms reach down 
into the valley from the height in the background. On 
the banks of this brook the grass grew luxuriantly, but 
it was far from being, in many places, of a height fit for 
mowing ; so that even this spot, where grass was more 
abundant than anywhere else, perhaps, along the whole 
coast, does not seem calculated to furnish winter fodder 
for any considerable number of cattle. Various flowers, 
among which was the sweet-smelling lychnis, everywhere 
adorned the fields. The cliffs recede to a distance of 
from two hundred to three hundred paces from the sea, 
rising then, however, almost perpendicularly far beyond 
the ordinary height, the clouds seeming to rest upon 
their snow-clad summits. Rock and ice slides are here 
events of frequent occurrence. Down a ravine on the 
southwest side of the cove, particularly, huge masses of 
ice were every moment precipitated, crumbling in their 
fall to dust and accompanied with a noise like thunder. 
At this really beautiful spot the natives of the country 
round assemble for a few days during their brief sum- 
mer to feast upon the char, that are to be got here in 
great plenty and of great size, the black crakeberry and 
angelica, and to lay in a stock of them for winter use, 
and give themselves up to mirth and merrymaking. 
This evening they collected together in a body of some 
two hundred or two hundred and fifty persons and be- 
gan by torchlight their tamboureen dance, a festivity to 



THE COAST IN DETAIL. 121 

which I was invited by frequent messages sent me dur- 
ing the night, but in which I was prevented by a slight 
attack of fever from taking part." * 

Of the general climatic conditions in southwestern 
Greenland Dr. Henry Rink has given us a very com- 
prehensive account. According to him, a short distance, 
in progressing from the extreme border to the inland 
ice, produces a great climatic change. In almost every 
day of summer, when the weather is warm and sunny 
along the outer shore, the temperature will suddenly 
fall to within two or three degrees of the freezing point. 
But this change does not usually extend farther into the 
interior, bright sunshine continuing to characterize a 
considerable belt of country bordering the ice cap. 
Dense clouds encompass the headlands only to be dis- 
solved within two or three miles of the border. To pass 
into the interior at this time of year is to change from 
winter to summer. In the winter, however, conditions 
are reversed, the temperature being much lower in the 
interior portions of the border than along its outer edge, 
the difference being more than ten degrees in favour of 
the oceanic border. 

The mean temperature at Julianshaab, near Cape 
Farewell, is 33° F., while that at Upernivik is 13°, a dif- 
ference of twenty degrees ; but the average summer tem- 
perature at Upernivik is only ten degrees below that of 
Julianshaab, the former being 38° and the latter 48°. In 
winter, however, there is an average difference of twenty- 
seven degrees, namely, 7° at Upernivik and 20° at Ju- 
lianshaab. Thus it appears that the climatic conditions 
in southern Greenland are remarkably uniform, the 

* Graah's Narrative of an Expedition to the East Coast of 
Greenland, pp. 106, 107. 



THE COAST IN DETAIL. 123 

winters being less severe than one would have sup- 
posed, while the summer is truly arctic. This is doubt- 
less caused by the equalizing effect of the large areas of 
water surrounding the southern portion. It should be 
said, however, that the observations at Julianshaab have 
all been made upon the extreme border, and we are 
ignorant of the climatic conditions in the interior of the 
southern part. But in latitude 64°, at Umanak, in 
the interior of the Godthaab Fiord, while the mean 
annual temperature is nearly the same as that at Godt- 
haab, on the border, the summer is much warmer and 
the winter much colder than at Godthaab, the mean 
temperature of July being four degrees higher, and that 
of December six and a half lower. Still the vegetation, 
even in the interior, always betrays the arctic character 
of the climate. 

The extremes of heat and cold, which have so de- 
cided an effect upon vegetation, are also discussed by 
Rink with much fulness of detail. At Lichtenau (lati- 
tude 60° 31'), during four years of observation, the ther- 
mometer only once rose as high as GG°, and only four 
times above 60° ; while at Upemivik (latitude 72° 48') 
the thermometer sometimes rises to 59°. At Julianshaab 
(latitude 60° 43') the thermometer rose to G8° in the 
summers of both 1853 and 1854, while in Disco Bay 
(latitude 68° 48') the thermometer rose to 64° on June 
28, 1858. 

Like the central part of Switzerland, which has its 
warm, dry, foehn wind, sometimes called the " snow 
eater," descending from the upper Alps in the autumn 
and winter, and like the northwestern part of the United 
States, which has its chinook wind pouring from the 
west into the interior over the Cascade and Rocky Moun- 
tains, and suddenly melting off the snows and drying up 



124 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

the land surfaces, Greenland has its mysterious warm 
currents flowing down from the interior to the outskirts, 
and producing sudden and most remarkable changes in 
the temperature. Frequently these will bring on an ex- 
tensive thaw in January and February. Nor are they 
limited to the southern latitudes. In the most northern 
settlements these winds have been known in the midst 
of winter to raise the temperature for a short time as 
high as 42°. As an effect of these winds, we have such 
paradoxes as the following : " During eight consecutive 
days of the long arctic night in November and Decem- 
ber, 1875, it was warmer at Jakobshavn (latitude 69° 
20'), in western Greenland, than in northern Italy; and 
for part of this time Upernivik, though in continuous 
winter darkness, was warmer than the south of France." * 
The cause of such winds has been assigned by me- 
teorologists to the effect of the latent heat set free by the 
condensation of the moisture as the winds have passed 
over high mountains, or, as in the case of Greenland, 
over large and high snow-covered areas, with an ensuing 
rapid descent to lowlands. Greely records that during 
such a wind the barometer rose a quarter of an inch dur- 
ing a single day. The direction of these warm land winds' 
varies according to locality, but they always come down 
from the ice cap, and are felt most at the head of the fiords. 
Sometimes they come down with such sudden force be- 
tween the walls over the fiords as to sweep everything 
before them, and to raise columns of fog, while at other 
times they come as a gentle breeze with a clear sky. 
Occasionally they are accompanied by heavy rains, but 
usually, as in Switzerland, when blowing for several 
days they are extremely dry, so that they evaporate 

* Nature, vol. xvi, pp. 294, 295. (August 9, 1877.) 



THE COAST IN DETAIL. 125 

nearly all the moisture produced by their melting 
power. 

The extremes of the winter cold in Danish Greenland 
are given by Rink as —29° F. at Julianshaab, in 1863, 
and —42° at Umanak, and —47° in Upernivik. At 
Upernivik, also, the temperature sometimes falls below 
the freezing point in July, once reaching the extreme of 
27^-°, but in south Greenland the temperature rarely 
reaches the freezing point in July and August. Among 
the instances of extreme changeableness of weather 
mentioned by Rink are the following : 

"On December 26, 1819, in 64° north latitude, a 
heavy rain was pouring down incessantly the whole day, 
with a calm and steady thermometer from 54° to 57°, 
the mean of that month amounting to 26-j-° in the same 
year. On May 22, 1850, the author found a saxifrage 
blossoming very beautifully in 70° 30' north latitude. 
On the last day of June and the first of July, 1854, 
after a severe winter, he visited the headland of Nunar- 
suit, about six hundred miles farther south, and tra- 
versed it on foot. The smaller inlets, as well as the 
lakes slightly above the level of the sea, were not only 
covered with ice, but the latter, as well as the adjoining 
country, was covered with snow to such a degree that 
the border between the ice and land was levelled and 
quite imperceptible. At Julianshaab, in February, 1855, 
the warm land wind set in with light breezes and a tem- 
perature of 32°, clearing the sky and lasting for about a 
fortnight, with beautiful weather, but was in March and 
April succeeded by heavy snowfalls, and on May 1st the 
gardens were still covered with a sheet of snow five feet 
thick. In the first week of June it snowed continuously 
for thirty-six hours, so as to make the roads between the 
houses almost impassable. Nevertheless, the summer 



126 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

turned out unusually fine, and in all respects favourable 
to vegetation. In 1863 and 1864 the winters in regard to 
severity surpassed any of which the author has ever been 
able to acquire information from earlier accounts, and 
possibly we should have to go back a whole century to 
find their equals. In 64° north latitude not a single 
drop of rain was noticed from September 27, 1862, to 
the 20th of May next, on which day the snow had ob- 
tained a height of from eight to twenty feet between 
the houses. At the southernmost settlement, during 
six days in March, the thermometer did not rise above 
— 17|°. The succeeding winter was almost identical as 
regards the whole amount of cold, but the period of ex- 
treme cold both commenced and abated somewhat ear- 
lier. As regards the quantity of snow, a more recent 
winter has nevertheless surpassed those here men- 
tioned."* 

* Danish Greenland, pp. 62, 63. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE ESKIMOS OF THE NOKTH ATLANTIC. 

In" their distribution and history, no less than in 
their habits, the Eskimos are a most singular people. A 
small colony of them lives in northeastern Asia, west of 
Behring Strait, but the largest proportion, about twenty 
thousand, is found in northwestern Alaska. From there 
they extend in inconsiderable numbers eastward along 
the northern coast of British America, to Baffin Bay, 
and down the coast of Labrador to the Strait of Belle 
Isle. Western Greenland, however, affords support to 
the great bulk of the race in eastern America, about ten 
thousand being at the present time found there. 

The word Eskimo means " meat-eater," and was 
given to the race to describe their habitual diet, which 
is determined for them by the necessities of their situa- 
tion ; for even in southern Greenland there is scarcely 
any vegetable food attainable. A few berries and the 
stalks of angelica, a plant which somewhat resembles 
celery, furnish the only relief which the people have 
from a pure diet of flesh ; though, when driven by hard 
necessity, they sometimes subsist for a while upon a 
species of seaweed, which is abundant. North of Mel- 
ville Bay, however, the people live entirely upon meat, 
the most of which is eaten raw. The little which is 
cooked is so prepared for the sake of extracting the 
blood, which, with water, forms their only drink. Thus 
10 127 



128 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

it would seem that the ordinary appellation of the peo- 
ple is so descriptive that it ought to be satisfactory ; but 
it is far from being so, and is very much disliked by 
natives. They prefer to be called, and call themselves, 
Innuit — that is, " The People." In their own estima- 
tion, they are the people and we the barbarians. 

Their origin and development are still as great mys- 
teries as ever. Linguistically they belong to the agglu- 
tinative family, in which the prefix, the stem, and the 
suffix of the words retain their individuality, and refuse 
perfectly to coalesce, as they do in the inflected lan- 
guages. To this extent the Eskimos are affiliated with 
the North American Indians, and at the same time to 
the Turanian nations, of which the Hungarians, the 
Finns, the Turks, and the Tamils are examples. A 
marked tendency in these languages is the compression 
into one word of what would require a whole sentence 
in other tongues. For example, seventeen words are 
used in English to express the idea in the following sen- 
tence : " He says that you also will go away quickly in 
like manner and buy a pretty knife." But in Eskimo 
this is all expressed in a single compound word : Savig- 
iksiniariartokasuaromaryotittogog. Analyzed, this is : 
Savig, a knife ; ik, pretty ; sini, buy ; ariartok, go away ; 
asuar, hasten ; omar, wilt ; ?/, in like manner ; otit, thou ; 
tog, also ; og, he says.* Similarly, when the Ojibway 
Indian wishes to refer to " those persons who came this 
way and did him and me a favour," he needs but the 
one compound word, Gahpemeezheshahwaynemeyungi- 
dechig.f 



* Robert Brown, in Encyclopaedia Britarraica. 
f Rev. Sela G. Wright, a missionary among the Ojibway 
Indians. 



THE ESKIMOS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 129 

But beyond such general resemblance there is little 
similarity between their language and that of the Ameri- 
can Indians, there being no common root words. It 
would be as difficult for an Eskimo to understand an 
Indian as for a Chinaman to understand an Arab. On 
the other hand, the uniformity of the Eskimo dialects is 
at once surprising and significant. Though separated 
by thousands of miles of inhospitable arctic wastes, 
which must have rendered intercommunication well- 
nigh impossible for many centuries, the Eskimos of 
Greenland, Labrador, Alaska, and eastern Siberia speak 
the same language with less dialectic variation than can 
be found in different counties of England. 

The investigations of Lewis H. Morgan * concerning 
the modes of reckoning relationship, involving funda- 
mental conceptions of social life, brought out clearly the 
fact, otherwise rendered probable, that the Indian and 
the Eskimo must have branched off from the racial stem 
in early prehistoric times. The Eskimo does not, like 
the Indian, consider his cousins as his brothers, nor call 
his nephews and nieces sons and daughters ; but he does 
call the husbands and wives of nieces and nephews sons- 
in-law and daughters-in-law, and the husbands and 
wives of cousins are regarded as brothers-in-law and 
sisters-in-law. The Eskimo conception of the family 
and the tribe seems thus to be a connecting link be- 
tween that of the Aryan and that of the Turanian race. 
The antiquity of this conception is no doubt very great. 

The primitive religion of the Eskimos does not differ 
essentiallv from that of the American Indian. With 



* Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Fam- 
ily, in Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, Washington, 
1870, No. 218, pp. 267-277. 



130 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

both there is belief in the immortality of the soul and 
of a Supreme Being ; while with both the chief means 
of influencing the Supreme Being is the intercession of 
the angekoh, as he is called by the Eskimos, or the 
" medicine man," as he is denominated among the In- 
dians. Originally their whole social organization was 
closely dependent upon the influence of these religious 
leaders. Nor has the substitution of Christianity for 
the original religion in Greenland wholly effaced the 
primitive habits of religious thought. 

The Supreme Being of the Eskimos was known as 
Tornarsiifc) under whom there were numerous subordi- 
nate tornaks, or guardian spirits, through whom only 
supplications for aid were lawful. There was, however, 
another method of invoking supernatural aid, which 
was unlawful, though effective, and which corresponded 
to witchcraft, so common among all nations. Although 
their main dependence was upon the intercession of the 
angekoks, men were supposed to be aided in securing 
assistance from Tomarsuh by the use of prayers and 
amulets. Health and long life, for example, were 
thought to be conferred upon a child by preserving his 
navel string for occasional use as an amulet. Pieces of 
old wood, stones, bones, bills and claws of birds, and 
other things also served as amulets. Many articles of 
commerce are used by them secretly for the same pur- 
pose. Probably, however, there is no greater supersti- 
tion in an Eskimo who carries around a kernel of cotfee 
in his pocket to secure long life than there is in the 
Anglo-Saxon who buries a bean under a stump for the 
purpose of removing warts from his hands. 

According to Egede, the " science of the angehohs " 
consisted of three things : First, " that he mutters cer- 
tain spells over sick people, in order to make them 



THE ESKIMOS OP THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 131 

recover their former health " ; second, " that he com- 
munes with Tornarsuk, and from him receives instruc- 
tions to advise people what course they are to take in 
affairs, that they may have success and prosper therein " ; 
third, " that he is by the same informed of the time and 
cause of anybody's death, or for what reason anybody 
comes to an untimely and uncommon end, and if any 
fatality shall befall a man."* 

It is difficult to tell how much of the influence of 
the angekoks was due to rank imposture, and how much 
to real mental and moral superiority. Ou the one hand, 
the early missionaries believed the angekoks to be im- 
postors pure and simple. According to Egede, the 
angekoks supported their claim to the power of visiting 
the unseen world by transparent tricks. Assembling 
the spectators in one of the houses after dark, when 
every one is seated the "angekok causes himself to be 
tied, his head between his legs and his hands behind 
his back, and a drum is laid at his side; thereupon, 
after the windows are shut and the light is put out, the 
assembly sings a ditty, which, they say, is the composi- 
tion of their ancestors. When they have done singing 
the angekok begins with conjuring, muttering, and 
brawling; invokes Tornarsuk, who instantly presents 
himself, and converses with him. ... In the mean- 
while he works himself loose, and, as they believe, 
mounts up into heaven through the roof of the house, 
and passes through the air till he arrives into the high- 
est of the heavens, where the souls of " the chief of the 
angekoks reside, by whom he gets information of all he 
wants to know. In the course of his career the success- 
ful angekok passes through various other analogous ex- 

* Hans Egede's Description of Greenland (London, 1818), p. 188. 



132 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

periences before he arrives at a point of supreme influ- 
ence among his fellows. This, as we have said, is set 
clown by Egede as pure imposture. 

But it may well be maintained that these experi- 
ences are often genuine delusions, such as occur in hyp- 
notic experiments of modern times. At any rate, it is 
the opinion of many who have been intimate with the 
Eskimos that the angekoks are usually persons of more 
than ordinary intelligence and respectability, and hold 
their position by reason of real personal merit. Dalager 
describes one who lived near him as a person who seemed 
sincerely to seek information about God and his work, 
and -to lead, on the whole, an exemplary life ; and Rink 
also grants that the misuse of authority to promote self- 
ish aims by the angekoks exhibits nothing which pecul- 
iarly distinguishes them from the priestly class in other 
nations. 

In the Christian transformation which has taken 
place in Greenland, the Supreme Being of the Eskimos 
has been changed into his Satanic Majesty, and all the 
work of the angekok has been degraded, in the estima- 
tion of the people, to the level of witchcraft. This 
leaves no room in later times for the original conception 
of the devil, which was that of an old woman by the 
name of Arnarkuagsak, who " resided in the depths of 
the ocean, ruling over all the inhabitants of the sea, and 
was made the grandmother of the devil." 

In their conceptions of the spiritual world, it was 
divided into two abodes — an under world and an upper 
world ; but it is not altogether strange that their pic- 
tures of these abodes differ radically from those drawn 
by the inhabitants of more sunny climes. According to 
the Eskimos, the under world is much the pleasanter, 
being a delicious country, " where the sun shines con- 



THE ESKIMOS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 133 

tinually with an inexhaustible stock of all sorts of 
choice provisions " ; whereas " cold and hunger are en- 
countered in the upper world." Still, neither of the 
worlds is thought to be wholly unendurable. 

The Eskimos, too, had their legends concerning the 
origin of things. Of these we have room for only two 
or three specimens. At the beginning, a Greenlander 
sprang out of the ground, and dug a wife out of a little 
hillock. From this couple the Eskimos were descended. 
The origin of foreigners was less noble. A Greenland 
woman gave birth to both children and whelps ; " these 
last she put into an old shoe and committed them to 
the mercy of the waves, with these words, ' Get ye gone 
from hence, and grow up to be Kablunaets.' This, they 
say, is the reason why the Kablunaets always live upon 
the sea ; and the ships, they say, have the very same 
shape as their shoes, being round before and behind." * 

The sun, moon, and stars were regarded as ancestors 
of the Eskimos, who, for various reasons, had been lifted 
up to heaven. The moon was thought to be a young 
man who had fallen deeply in love with his sister, the 
sun, and who " was used every night to put out the light 
that he might caress her undiscovered; but she, not 
liking these stolen caresses, once blackened her hands 
with soot, that she might mark the hands, face, and 
clothes of her unknown lover who in the dark made 
addresses to her, and by that discover who he was ; 
hence, they say, come the spots that are observed in the 
moon ; for, as he wore a coat of a fine white reindeer 
skin, it was all over besmeared with soot; whereupon 
Malina, or the sun, went out to light a bit of moss; 
Anningate, or the moon, did the same, but the flame of 

* Description of Greenland, p. 199. 



134 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

his moss was extinguished ; this makes the moon look 
like a fiery coal, and not shine so bright as the sun. 
The moon then ran after the sun round about the house 
to catch her; but she, to get rid of him, flew up into 
the air, and the moon, pursuing her, did likewise ; and 
thus they still continue to pursue one another, though 
the sun's career is much above that of the moon." * 

Physically the Eskimos have considerable resem- 
blance to the Chinese. Nansen describes f them as hav- 
ing round, broad faces, with small dark eyes, sometimes 
slightly resembling those of the Mongolian races, a flat 
nose, rather narrow between the eyes, a broad mouth 
with heavy jaws, and as being in general short of stature 
and, owing to their mode of life, deficient in the devel- 
opment of their lower limbs. They wash so seldom 
that it is difficult to determine the natural colour of 
their skin, which is really a brownish or a grayish yellow, 
though much intensified by the accumulation of dirt. 

An incident related to me by Dr. Dudley P. Allen is 
significant in its bearing upon the question of the gen- 
eral race affiliation of the Eskimos. Dr. Allen is Pro- 
fessor of Surgery in the medical department of the West- 
ern Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, and has charge 
of one of the hospitals of the city. Among the patients 
which came under his care last summer was an Eskimo 
from Labrador, who had been at the Columbian Exposi- 
tion in Chicago. While passing through Cleveland on 
his way home he received an injury and was detained for 
some time in the hospital. Among Dr. Allen's guests 
during the summer was Dr. Kerr, of Canton, China, 
who for forty years had been chief of the hospital estab- 

* Description of Greenland, pp. 207, 208. 

f The First Crossing of Greenland, pp. 172, 173. 



THE ESKIMOS OP THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 135 



lished there by Presbyterian missionaries, and hence by 
his long residence and practice had become perfectly 






'MmW\ 



t 



Fig. 29.— A typical Eskimo couple. 



familiar with Chinese physiognomy. As these two were 
passing through the wards of the hospital in Cleveland, 



136 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

the face of the Eskimo attracted the attention of Dr. 
Kerr, and his instantaneous remark was, " Why, here is 
a Chinaman ! What's the matter with him? " Such an 
impression made on one so familiar with the Chinese 
speaks more strongly of the Asiatic affiliations of the 
Eskimos than a volume of statistics would do. It would 
be difficult to believe that any one would ever mistake 
an Indian for a Chinaman, but the resemblance between 
the Eskimos and the Chinese, while largely indefinable, 
is as clear as that which impresses all tourists between 
the tribes of southeastern Alaska and the Japanese. 

Dr. F. A. Cook, ethnologist of the first Peary North 
Greenland Expedition, has made the most careful study 
of the Eskimos north of that region. From his meas- 
urements we learn that " the average male is five feet 
one inch and a half in height, and his average weight is 
one hundred and thirty-five pounds, while the woman 
is four feet eight inches in height and has an average 
weight of one hundred and eighteen pounds." Dr. Cook 
remarks also upon the Mongolian cast of their counte- 
nance, and that " the muscular outlines of the body 
are nearly obliterated from the fact that they have 
immediately beneath the skin a layer of blubber or 
areolar tissue which protects them against extreme 
cold." 

It is not strange that the Eskimos have been gener- 
ally regarded as an Asiatic race which sought to better 
its condition by emigrating to America at a somewhat 
recent period ; * for, in addition to the resemblance, 
both physical and linguistic, between the Eskimos and 



* See especially Mr. C. R. Markham's paper, printed in the 
Arctic Papers prepared by the Geographical Society of London in 
1875 for the Nares Expedition. 



THE ESKIMOS OP THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 137 

the various Asiatic tribes, this view is supported by 
the surprising uniformity already referred to in the 
language of the Eskimos, however widely scattered ; 
by a similar uniformity in their arts, traditions, and 




Fig. 30.— A company of Eskimo boys. 



folk-lore ; and by the fact that a few Eskimos still 
live in Siberia, It is cogently argued that this uni- 
formity could not have been maintained if the Green- 
land Eskimos had been separated from the Alaskan 
stock for many centuries. The late immigration of 
the Greenland Eskimos is thought to be confirmed 
also by the historical evidence that the Europeans, 
who settled in southern Greenland about the year 
1000, did not come in contact with any natives for 
two or three hundred years, and then only in northern 
Greenland. 



138 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

On the other hand, Dr. Rink * maintains (and he is 
supported by the high authority of William H. Dall) f 
that the Eskimos are an aboriginal American race 
which, yielding to the pressure of the more favoured 
central tribes, was pushed northward down the principal 
water courses of British America to the arctic border of 
the continent, where the conditions of life necessitated 
the abrupt change in the habits of the people which now 
separate them from all other races in the world. This 
theory naturally accounts for the enmity which exists 
between the Eskimo and the Indian whenever they come 
in contact with each other ; but it does not so well ac- 
count for the clear line of demarcation between them 
in their general appearance, their systems of social life, 
and their linguistic characteristics. 

On the whole, therefore, it would seem that the 
Eskimo emigration from Asia was independent of the 
Indian, but that it occurred at a much more remote 
period than Mr. Markham supposes. Still the facilities 
for migration have always existed in the vicinity of 
Behring Strait ; for so narrow is this channel that boat 
loads of the natives living upon its shores now annually 
cross and recross from one side to the other, while the 
water is so shallow that an elevation of only one hun- 
dred and seventy-one feet would establish land connec- 
tion between the continents at the present time. Such 
connection was probably in existence at no very remote 
period. J 

* Meddeleser om Gronland, Ellevete Hefte, 1887. Also Danish 
Greenland, pp. 404, 405. 

f See Contributions to North American Ethnology, L T nited 
States Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Moun- 
tains Region, 1877, vol. i, pp. 93-106. 

% W. H. Dall, American Journal of Science, February, 1881. 



THE ESKIMOS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 139 

The Eskimos never live far away from the water, 
and, with one exception, the tribes are all dependent on 
their skill in the construction and use of boats peculiar- 
ly fitted to ride the breakers of the sea. That exception 
is .the Highland Eskimo of northern Greenland, where 
the reign of frost is so supreme that boats are almost 
wholly discarded, and hunting and fishing are prose- 
cuted mainly upon the ice and upon the narrow margin 
of land, which continues to support small colonies of 
musk ox and reindeer. 




Fig. 31.— A umiak, with women rowing. 

The boats of the Eskimos are most ingeniously con- 
structed, being covered with skins of the seal, stretched 
over a light, strong framework of wood. These are of 
two patterns, the umiak and the kayak. 

The umiak, or women's boat, requires from fifteen 
to twenty skins for its construction, and is from twenty- 
five to thirty- seven feet long, about five feet broad and 
two and a half feet deep, flat-bottomed, and open at the 



140 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

top. The largest of them can carry more than three 
tons, or six thousand pounds of freight. So light are 
they that six or eight men can carry one with ease on 
their backs. The umiak is universally rowed by women, 
and is chiefly used to transport the families in summer 
from one hunting station to another, great care being 
taken not to expose it to rough seas, which it is not 
adapted to encounter. When thoroughly wet the skins 
of the umiak become transparent, so that the water can 
be seen through the bottom and sides as the boat rushes 
through it — an experience which is somewhat startling 
to the tourist who ventures in one for the first time. 

But the boat of greatest importance and interest is 
the kayak, which is certainly one of the most marvellous 
adaptations of natural forces to human use which has 
ever been made. This remarkable boat is a logical but 
most ingenious evolution from the birch-bark canoe of 
the northern Indian tribes of America. The various 
stages of development from the light and open boat of 
the northwestern tribes to the closed and water-tight 
shell of the kayak of Greenland can readily be traced 
around the shores of Alaska and British America. 

The framework of the kayak consists of wood or 
bone, and is about twenty feet long, pointed at both 
ends, and about two and a half feet wide, and of the 
same depth in the middle. Over the frame there is 
tightly stretched and closely sewed a covering of tanned 
sealskin, impervious to water. The whole thing is so 
light that a boy of twelve can carry it with little effort. 
In the middle of the top there is a hole just large 
enough to permit the owner to insert his body, so that 
he can sit on the bottom and stretch his legs in front of 
him. Sealskin mittens and a sealskin coat, with a hood 
for the head and a rim for a close-fitting attachment to 



THE ESKIMOS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 141 

a corresponding rim around the aperture in the kayak, 
complete the protection from water. Thus fastened in, 
and sitting bolt upright, and provided with a paddle 




Fig. 32.— G 



tland kayaks. 



flaring at both ends, the native can defy the winds and 
waves which would swamp an ordinary boat. 

The first sight of a kayak in Greenland waters is ex- 



142 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

citing in the extreme. It is likely to occur, as with us, 
when lying off an unknown harbour waiting for a pilot. 
The whistle has been blown long and loud, the cannon 
has been fired and the rocket discharged, and still no 
response from the shore. At length, when patience is 
almost exhausted, there appear three or four black specks 
on the top of the distant swells of the broad bay, how 








_ #. 



Fig. 33.— Kayakers coming out to meet us. 

distant we are little prepared to estimate because of the 
excessive clearness of the atmosphere. As they get 
nearer we begin to see a curious motion somewhat re- 
sembling the arms of a windmill. These are the kayaks 
with their several occupants striving to outstrip each 
other in a race for the coveted job of conducting the 
ship into harbour. Already they are far ahead of the 
larger boat, which comes lagging along in the rear. 



THE ESKIMOS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 143 

On reaching the ship the most fortunate kayaker 
loosens his coat from the rim of his boat, of which he 
seems to form a part, with much difficulty wriggles 
himself free from its entanglement, and is brought on 
board. Those who fell behind in the race soon arrive, 
and loiter around the ship, some of them resting quietly 
like ducks upon the water, only occasionally dipping 
down one end of their curious paddles to resist the force 
of some unusual wave, while others display both their 
own skill and the capacity of their kayaks by various 
manoeuvres which never fail to astonish spectators. 
Now one will perform a somersault, or a series of somer- 
saults, with his kayak, or will dart forward like light- 
ning at right angles to another kayak and jump com- 
pletely over the bow of it. To the natives the motions 
necessary to preserve equilibrium are almost a second 
nature, having become instinctive from childhood. But 
unfortunate indeed is the European who attempts any 
antics in, or even ventures into, one of these boats. 
The adult who has not already learned its management 
had better not attempt to learn. 

At one time, while in camp at Ikamiut, when the 
wind was blowing a gale, shutting us up all day in our 
tent and tossing the waves of the fiord into such com- 
motion that it would have been madness for any large 
boat to have ventured upon the water, we were thrilled 
by the cry that some kayakers were coming. They were 
three that belonged to the little settlement, and had 
come that day, as a matter of course, from Sukkertop- 
;oen, which was twenty miles distant. Upon reaching 
I !p shore and pulling themselves loose from their shells, 
" kayakers ran their hands into the apertures from 
.'ch they had drawn their limbs, and brought out 

. >us objects of merchandise which they had pur- 
varic * J r 



144: GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

chased at the store for their families. Then they sever- 
ally took up their kayaks and carried them to a secure 
place, and disappeared in the igloos, where their families 
soon joined them to talk over the adventures of the 
week. To us they seemed like inhabitants of the sea, 
who were accustomed to shed their skins on coming out 
of the water. 

The kayak is equipped with various implements of 
the chase. First, there is a bird spear, consisting of a 
short handle of wood pointed with bone and surrounded 
a little way back from the point by a circle of barbed 
bone lance heads projecting forward, designed to give a 
whirling motion to the missile, and, in case the object is 
not squarely hit by the point, to make more sure of its 
entanglement. Then there is the harpoon for the seal, 
which is arranged with a loose joint, so that after the 
spearhead has penetrated the animal it becomes de- 
tached from the shaft and remains connected with a 
thong in the hands of the hunter. This thong is also 
attached to a float, consisting of the inflated skin of 
some large animal, sewed together so as to be air-tight. 
This is thrown into the water and prevents the escape 
or sinking of the wounded animal. Various kinds of 
fishing tackle are also natural attachments of the kayak 
when fully equipped. At Ikamiut, all these implements 
were of native manufacture. 

The houses of the Eskimo are as admirably adjusted 
for their winter life as they are ill-adapted for summer 
residence. In the far north they are built of snow, but 
in southern Greenland of stone and turf, the walls rising 
from three to five feet above the level of the ground, 
while the roof is nearly flat or only slightly arched, r^nd 
covered with sod. One might easily pass by an Eskimo 
settlement at a little distance and be unable to distm- 



THE ESKIMOS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 145 

guish it from the clusters of natural mounds which oc- 
casionally occur. 




The snow houses are, of course, always temporary 
structures, but they can be erected in a very short 



146 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

time; indeed, almost as quickly as a tent can be set 
up. Schwatka describes in a very interesting manner 
the course of the natives upon reaching a suitable camp- 
ing place, when their first movement is to go around 
thrusting their spears into the snowbanks to find one 
sufficiently deep and dense for their purposes. On find- 
ing such a bank, they exclaim, "Plenty warm ! plenty 
warm ! " and forthwith proceed to carve out blocks from 
it, which are soon built into a dome-shaped hut fully 
justifying the exclamation, and which will defy the 
strongest and the coldest winds which even the arctic 
zones can furnish. These snow huts have to be aban- 
doned for skin tents upon the approach of summer, 
which is duly announced to the inmates by the falling 
in of the roof. 

The interior structure of the Eskimo house is ex- 
tremely simple. The single room consists of an oblong 
quadrangle, upon one side of which is a shelf of boards 
about a foot from the floor, and wide enough for the 
adult members of the family to stretch themselves upon 
it at full length, with their feet to the wall. This is 
their sleeping and lounging place, occupied both day 
and night. A low partition in this shelf separates one 
family from another, while a narrow passageway extends 
along the side of the room through the entire length. 
At the farther end of this passageway, and at the end of 
each partition, are found the native lamps, around which 
the women habitually gather, and where they sit and 
jabber and sew and complete the process of tanning 
bird skins and seal skins by chewing them faithfully 
with their well-preserved teeth, adding variety to the 
scene by pausing now and then to trim their lamp — a 
process requiring considerable skill. The lamp consists 
of a shallow basin hollowed out of a piece of soapstone, 



THE ESKIMOS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 147 

in which there is a quantity of seal blubber. The wick 
is formed from a species of moss, which by frequent re- 
newals is made to serve the purpose very well. To start 




Fig. 35.— The better class of Eskimo houses at Sukkertoppen. 

the lamp, some oil is expressed from a piece of blubber 
in the mouth and spurted into the hollow containing 
the general mass ; but when once lighted, the heat of 
the flame melts the blubber and keeps up the supply of 
liquid fuel, very much as it does in an ordinary candle. 

Light from the outside is admitted into the igloo 
through a single window facing the south. In primitive 
times, and still in the more remote settlements, the win- 
dow is made of the translucent entrails of the seal, but 
now in the principal settlements glass is used. The sun 
is absent for so much of the year, however, that windows 
are of little account, while during the season of almost 
perpetual sunshine their winter habitations are deserted 
for tents. Of necessity, therefore, artificial light is their 



148 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

main dependence indoors, and their lamps are kept con- 
tinually burning. 

The entrance both to the ordinary igloos and to 
those made with snow, while designed to permit the 
passage of the inhabitants to and fro, is also planned 
to permit only so much circulation of air as shall pro- 
vide ventilation and lower the temperature as little as 
possible. This passageway is narrow and crooked, so 
that, to enter, one has to get down upon his hands 
and knees, or be very deft in maintaining his balance in 
a stooping position. There are current numerous stories 
of fat men being wedged into the passageway to another 
man's igloo, so that they have had to be extricated by 
force, or relieved by tearing down the house. It is re- 
lated of a very tall German missionary, that upon mak- 
ing his pastoral visits upon the native families, the only 
way of obtaining access to their igloos was by snugly 
incasing himself in a sleeping bag, and asking his pa- 
rishioners to haul him in and out, as they would the 
carcass of a seal. 

During the midnight storms of the long winter the 
enveloping snows afford additional protection to the 
inmates. Indeed, so well protected from the cold are 
these igloos in southern Greenland, that, without any 
fire except what is furnished by their lamps, the tem- 
perature is kept up to a high degree of warmth ; so that, 
for comfort, clothing is pretty much discarded by the 
natives when once the house is entered. This practice 
secures both present comfort and the thorough airing 
and drying of their clothes, which is an important sani- 
tary result. 

Much is said about the filthiness of the Eskimos, 
and, indeed, nothing can be more repulsive than the 
surroundings of an igloo in the early summer, after 



THE ESKIMOS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 149 

the sun has melted away the enveloping snow and laid 
bare the accumulated refuse of the winter. But it 
should be remembered that, so long as this remained 
frozen and covered with snow it was inoffensive and 
unobserved, and that ordinarily the Eskimo method of 
house-cleaning is very effective, which is to abandon the 
igloo upon the approach of summer, and suffer the ele- 
ments to have free sway until the approach of winter, 
when the building is reconstructed after its long airing, 
and its inmates are securely buried up again. 

So long as the natives were able to live in tents dur- 
ing the summer, it can not be said that their sanitary 
condition was unfavourable ; but in these later days of 
contact with European civilization, when they have been 
tempted and enabled to kill the reindeer in excessive 
numbers for purposes of trade, they have so diminished 
the supply of skins that now they are unable to provide 
themselves with tents as formerly, and are often com- 
pelled to live in their igloos during the entire year, and 
so are prevented from moving from place to place as free- 
ly as in earlier times. Under such circumstances it must 
be confessed that the sanitary conditions are often de- 
plorable, and this is showing its effect in the increasing 
prevalence of consumption and various other diseases. 

The supposed bad effect on individual morality of 
such community of residence as is found among the 
Eskimos is by no means so great as one would at first 
imagine ; for only the parents, the girls, and the smaller 
children sleep closely huddled together on the broad 
shelf, while the unmarried men lie by themselves on 
narrow shelves especially prepared for them, and the 
very crowding of the room secures for the girls the con- 
tinual protection of a chaperon without her presence 
being obtrusive. Moreover, the difficulty, if not the im- 



150 



GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 



•..•• 



. 




possibility, of a woman's supporting herself and a child 
without a husband and a kayak, renders illegitimacy a 
most serious calamity, and secures a pretty general ob- 
servance of marriage rites and vows. 

Such is the rigour of their conditions of life that the 

hardships of the unfor- 
tunate among the hea- 
then Eskimos are to 
us almost inconceiv- 
able. According to 
Dr. Cook, all superflu- 
ous individuals in the 
far north are remorse- 
lessly permitted to per- 
ish. When a woman 
is about to give birth 
to a child, she is put in 
a house and given fro- 
zen meat sufficient to 
last for two weeks, and 
also some blubber and 
oil. If she survives the 
ordeal, and the baby is 
heard to cry, the others 
will come in and help 
her; but if the baby's 
cries are, not heard, the 
house will not be en- 
tered again. Mothers 
nurse their children for 
four or five years ; but if the mother dies before the 
child is three years old, the child is left to perish with 
her ; while if the father dies before the child is three 
years old, the child must be killed, or the mother will 




V 



Fig. 36. 



The Catechist/s daughter in 
full dress. 



THE ESKIMOS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 151 




lose all hope of obtaining another husband to support 
her. In times of famine the childless women and the 
old women are turned out to starve, and cannibalism is 
resorted to for self-preservation. 

Almost all writers speak of the Eskimos as deterio- 
rating in physical char- 
acteristics, and as rap- 
idly approaching ex- 
tinction. Doubtless 
there is much truth in 
this view, for there can 
be little question that 
contact with the Eu- 
ropeans has had an in- 
jurious effect upon the 
race in various ways. 
Indeed, trade with civ- 
ilized nations has been 
almost necessarily det- 
rimental to the Eski- 
mos ; for they have 
little sense of the rela- 
tive value of things, 
and are so inexperi- 
enced and improvident 
that in barter they are 
sure to get the worst 
of the bargain, and to 
exchange articles of 
prime necessity to 

themselves for those which are of scarcely any real value 
to them. 

There can be little doubt that if the Eskimos had 
been left to the tender mercy of traders they would 




Fig. 37.— A typical Eskimo boy. 



152 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

long ago have become extinct. Especially is the craving 
of the people for stimulants such that they will part with 
almost everything they have for coffee, tobacco, and alco- 
hol. Through the wise precautions of the Danish Gov- 
ernment, however, the sale of alcohol is absolutely pro- 
hibited, so that natives are saved from its evil effects, 
while the sale of tobacco and coffee is so limited by vari- 
ous regulations that the people are not allowed to im- 
poverish themselves too much in obtaining them. 

Even the use of firearms has been of doubtful advan- 
tage to the Eskimo, for, while it has enabled him to 
kill more game of certain kinds, it has led to much 
lamentable waste. Through the facilities which have 
been furnished by firearms for capturing reindeer, there 
has been imminent danger of the extinction of this im- 
portant animal in Greenland, and the number has actu- 
ally been very greatly reduced. From 1845 to 1819 
twenty-five thousand reindeer were annually killed in 
Danish Greenland, and sixteen thousand skins per an- 
num were exported ; but since that time the numbers 
have been so diminished that from 1868 to 1872 not 
more than one thousand per annum were killed, and 
the export of skins had absolutely ceased. Consequently, 
reindeer meat is do longer in daily use, and the reindeer 
skins, so essential for the protection of the inhabitants 
against the cold, are not sufficient to supply the home 
demand. 

In hunting the seal the use of firearms involves the 
loss of many animals, which sink after the shot before 
they can be captured ; and the gun is so awkward a 
weapon to carry in a kayak that in many situations the 
Greenland er is hindered, rather than helped by its aid, 
so that the chances of securing a seal by the use of his 
harpoon and float are about as good as they would be 



THE ESKIMOS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 153 

with the rifle. When in quest of birds, the noise of the 
gun frightens the whole flock and makes them wary ; 
while with his bird spear the kayaker can approach the 
rookery or the flock as it floats upon the water and 
quietly capture as many as his small boat can carry, 
without alarming the great numbers which are un- 
harmed. Guns are said to be of no avail in hunting the 
walrus, because his skull is so thick that a rifle ball will 
not penetrate it. 

The tendency of civilization to diminish the size of 
the families occupying one house is also generally re- 
garded as deleterious and productive of poverty. In 1870 
there were only one hundred and five houses in Danish 
Greenland having more than sixteen inmates each. At 
that time the highest number in any house was thirty- 
six. Formerly the average was probably as high as 
forty. 

Serious famines have occurred at various times dur- 
ing the present century, while epidemics have thinned 
the population to an alarming degree. Still the total 
number has not diminished during the last forty years, 
but, on the contrary, has slightly increased. While in 1855 
there were but 9,644 natives on the west coast, in 1889 
there were 10,177. Hans Egede, one hundred and fifty 
years ago, estimated the population at 30,000, but this 
estimate is probably a great exaggeration. At any rate 
it is not based upon anything like an accurate census, 
such as is now taken from year to year. 

Two extracts from G-raah's interesting narrative will 
give a better idea both of the original characteristics of 
the Eskimos and of their social customs than any gen- 
eralizations can do. We may premise, however, that 
originally among them the winning of a wife proceeded 
upon the supposition that she was unwilling to enter 



154 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

into that relation, and so had actually to be forced into 
it. Many incidents are related of the persistence with 
which the woman has sought to evade being captured 
by her lover. Foreigners who have ventured to inter- 
fere for the rescue of the young woman have usually 
found, however, that the unwillingness on the woman's 
part was not invincible, for she is sure to prefer the rule 
of her lover to the protection of her impolitic defender. 
It is a common remark, also, that the Eskimos generally 
refrain from expressing in a loublic manner their inter- 
est in one another. Both their greetings and their 
good-bys are as undemonstrative as possible. Christian- 
ity has modified rather than eradicated these character- 
istics. In Danish Greenland the marriages are per- 
formed by the clergyman on his occasional rounds. 
But when the crisis approaches it is usually difficult to 
find the groom, who would be ashamed to have it appear 
that it was a matter in which he was at all interested. 
Lovers, while in each other's company, show no interest 
in each other. 

The first of the incidents which we quote from Graah 
occurred after he had been icebound seventeen days 
upon the eastern coast, and his provisions had run short, 
putting his Greenlanders much out of spirit. " For the 
rest," he says, " nothing of any moment occurred dur- 
ing our detention at this place except the killing of a 
bear, to which one of our kayakers had nearly fallen a 
victim. The poor fellow had been sleeping on the 
ground in the open country, and was awakened by the 
hard breathing of the animal close by him. Springing 
up, he escaped in his boat, and felled him from thence 
with his arrows. The G-reenlander who met with this 
adventure, and whose name was "Nmgeoak, was a lively, 
merry fellow of some twenty years of age, very much 



THE ESKIMOS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 155 

addicted to antic tricks — in fact, the clown of the party. 
Like his fellows, each of whom had, on our setting out, 
selected a helpmate for himself from among the women 
of the party, he had made court to several, in succession, 
of his fair countrywomen, but had been refused by all 
of them on the plea of his being a ' Nellursok ' — that is 
to say, a heathen, literally an ignoramus. More than 
once he had begged me to make intercession with them 
in his favour, but all my efforts had proved of no 
avail. The dead bear proved, however, a more efficient 
advocate, his conquest of it (for a successful bear hunter 
is held in Greenland in high repute) making so deep 
an impression upon them that I verily believe he might, 
if he had chosen it, have had them all. Nmgeoak's 
pride had, however, been deeply wounded by their pre- 
vious rejection of his suit, and, to revenge himself, he 
chose for his helpmate a superannuated beldame, the 
ugliest of the whole party." * 

On a later occasion, after describing the collection 
of two hundred natives for a festival and tamboureen 
dance (which continued all night), but which he was 
unable to attend on account of illness, Graah writes : f 

" On waking this morning, I heard the tamboureen 
of my Greenland friends still going. I made haste, 
therefore, to join them, and though when I reached the 
spot they were on the point of breaking up, they con- 
tinued their dance a little longer on my account. To 
form an adequate conception of the dance I witnessed 
on this occasion it is absolutelv necessarv to have seen 



* Graah's Narrative of an Expedition to the East Coast of 
Greenland, p. 72. 

f The circumstances concerning this gathering have already 
been referred to on page 120. 



156 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

it. To describe it is no easy matter. The tamboureen, 
as I have termed it, employed by them by way of mu- 
sical accompaniment, is a simple ring, or hoop, of wood, 
with a piece of old boat skin, well saturated with oil, 
stretched tightly over it, and furnished with a handle ; 
this one of the party holds in his left hand, and, taking 
his station in the centre, while the rest form a ring 
about him, and throwing off his jacket, strikes with a 
small wooden stick, extemporizing, after a brief prelude, 
a song, the subject of which is the chase of the seal or 
some other, to them, important incident or event, the 
whole assembly joining at the end of every strophe in 
the chorus of ' Eia-eia-a ! Eia-eia-a ! ' During this per- 
formance he makes unceasingly a sort of courtesying 
motion, and writhes and twists his head and eyes in the 
most laughable style imaginable. Nothing, however, 
can equal in absurdity the movements of his nether 
man, with which he describes entire circles, nay, figures 
of eight. 

" This tamboureen dance is in high esteem among 
the Greenlanders. When about to take part in it, they 
put on their best holiday apparel, and the women take 
as much pride in performing it with what they consider 
grace as our young belles in dancing a quadrille or a 
galop. It serves, however, not merely the purpose of 
amusement, but constitutes at the same time a sort of 
forum, before which all transgressors of their laws and 
customs are, in a manner, cited, and receive their 
merited reproof. When a Greenlander, to wit, thinks 
he has sustained a wrong or injury at another's hand, 
he composes a satirical song, which all his friends 
straightway learn by heart, and then makes known 
among the inhabitants of the place his intention of 
bringing the matter to arbitration. On the day ap- 



THE ESKIMOS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 157 

pointed, the parties, with their partisans, assemble and 
form the ring, which done, the plaintiff, singing and 
dancing as above described, states the case, taking occa- 
sion to retaliate on his adversary by as much ridicule 
and sarcasm as he can devise, to which, when he is 
finished, the other, singing and dancing in his turn, 
replies; and thus the case is pleaded, till both have 
nothing more to say, on which the spectators pronounce 
sentence at once, without appeal, and the adversaries 
part as good friends as if nothing had happened to dis- 
turb the harmony of their friendship. In this way the 
debtor is sometimes reminded of his debt and the evil- 
doer receives a merited rebuke for his misconduct. In 
fact, a better system of prevention and punishment of 
offences — one, at least, better adapted to the disposition 
of the people among whom it obtains — could scarcely be 
devised, as there is nothing of which the Greenlander is 
so much afraid as to be despised or laughed at by his 
countrymen. This apprehension, there can be no 
doubt, deters many among them from the commission 
of offences ; and it is to be regretted that the mission- 
aries, losing sight of this peculiarity of their temper, 
have abolished this national dance on the west coast." * 

A brief account of two Sabbath services which I 
attended will furnish some important colours in the 
picture of existing life in Greenland. 

In the early part of August, 1894, as already described, 
I set out with a party of eight from Sukkertoppen to 
spend a week in camping close by the projection of the 
inland ice, which there comes down to the head of the 
lonely and picturesque fiord of Ikamiut. A hard pull 

* Graah's Narrative of an Expedition to the East Coast of 
Greenland, pp. 107, 108. 



158 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

at the oars for twenty miles brought us, late on Friday 
night, to our destination. On Saturday the weather 
was nnpropitious. The wind blew hard, and the air was 
full of fog and drizzly rain. We were able to do little 
but sit in our tent and cultivate the acquaintance of our 
strange but kindly and well-disposed neighbours. They 
were curious to see everything we had, and to know 
both what it was and what it was for. It must be con- 
fessed also that we were equally curious to learn every- 
thing about them. But, in token of their good will the 
women and children brought us an abundant supply of 
moss and crowberry vines with which to carpet our tent 
and to disguise the hardness of our rocky floor. 

Sunday morning came, and it was still cold and 
rainy. While we were eating our breakfast and shiver- 
ing over our coal-oil stove in the tent, a man of mild 
appearance and diminutive stature came to the door 
with a hymn book and a Bible in his hands, and pointed 
to them to indicate, as we surmised, that there was to 
be religious service somewhere in the settlement. But 
he did not linger long, and so silently disappeared that 
we did not see where he went, and hence were at a, loss 
to know where the service was to be held, for the settle- 
ment was squalid in the extreme, and no one of the 
three igloos seemed better than the others. 

But on going down to our boats we heard singing in 
one of the igloos. Stooping down before the low door 
and pushiug it open, on our hands and knees, we were 
welcomed by motions into the most interesting church 
service I ever expect to attend. To our eyes the room 
in itself was dreary beyond description. The low walls 
of stone and turf were reeking with moisture, while wa- 
ter distilled freely from the sod roof in various places, 
and, as one walked along the passageways, spurted up 



160 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

from the crevices between the loose stones with which 
the floor was covered. The only dry place was the shelf, 
elevated about a foot, on the north side of the room, 
which for the regular inmates was their sleeping place 
by night and their lounging place by day. A cylindrical 
sheet-iron stove near the door was now cold and lifeless, 
because the creeping vines and peat were so wet that it 
was impossible to kindle a fire. A lamp of seal oil 
freshly distilled from the raw blubber was burning in 
the other end of the room, being the special property 
and care of the oldest woman of the household. In no 
place could one stand erect. 

Yet here was gathered the whole community for 
Sabbath morning worship. Of course, I could not un- 
derstand the words of their hymn, but the tune was a 
grand German choral, in which all united, maintaining 
perfectly the slow, dignified, and effective movement. 
Then followed a sermon from the little man, who proved 
to be the catechist living in the place. This was deliv- 
ered in the Eskimo language, and with eloquence and 
effect, though from the lowness of the room the speaker 
was compelled to remain in a sitting posture. The only 
intelligible words to me in either the sermon or the 
prayers were the amens, in which all joined. Finally 
the service was closed with another hymn sung to an 
equally impressive German choral. 

Not to be excelled in respect paid for the Sabbath, 
we arranged an English service in our tent after the 
midday meal, and circulated the notice among the 
Eskimos in the same manner as that employed by the 
catechist in the morning. We should have been glad 
to have asked them into the tent, but, as they had not 
yet learned that cleanliness is next to godliness, prudence 
suggested that they be excluded ; so I stood in the door 



THE ESKIMOS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 161 

of the tent with our own company massed near the en- 
trance, while the Eskimos, notwithstanding the inclem- 
ent weather, gathered in front of the tabernacle. But 
they were all there, listening with the utmost devotion 
to the singing and the service, of which they understood 
not a word. Such was our first Sabbath. 

The second Sunday service was at Sukkertoppen in 
a tastily built church seating about four hundred. The 




Fig. 39.— Church at Sukkertoppen. Men carrying a umiak in the fore- 
ground. 

room was crowded to its utmost capacity — the men sit- 
ting upon one side and the women and children upon 
the other, while a score or more of dusky but bright-eyed 
babies peered over the shoulders of their mothers or older 
sisters and added to the singularity of the service by 
their gentle but constant crooning. Numbers also of the 
late-comers were sitting upon the floor in the back part 
of the church. 

The services were conducted by a native catechist, 



162 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

and were essentially the same as those which we had 
attended the week before. But there was here a reed 
organ, upon which a native played, supplying the inter- 
ludes and harmonies that regularly accompany a German 
choral. Some years before I had been impressed with 
this form of church music in the grand Cathedral of 
Cologne, but had supposed that its power was largely 
due to the exceptionally favourable conditions under 
which it was there rendered ; the powerful organ, the 
immense congregation, the hearty enthusiasm born of 
centuries of practice, all seemed to be unique at Cologne. 
But here, amid Greenland's icy mountains, was a recently 
converted heathen people singing their praises to God 
in the same noble harmonies that satisfy the congrega- 
tions of the most highly cultivated musical people in the 
world — and singing them, too, with equal perfection and 
enthusiasm. Probably each individual voice alone would 
have sounded execrably, but all together blended into a 
dignified volume of sound of the noblest and most satis- 
factory character. I had come to Greenland to learn 
effectually a most important lesson in church music. 
The reports of other parties respecting the Sabbath 
services at other places are to the same effect, and show 
that our experience was not exceptional. 

A superficial glance at the condition of woman 
among the Eskimos leaves upon the ordinary European 
the impression that she is very much oppressed, and is 
little less than a slave to the men. More careful inquiry, 
however, will show that this is far from being the case ; 
for, in fact, the women are exceedingly cheerful, and in 
the division of labour have reason to be, as they are, well 
satisfied with the part assigned to them. 

When a seal is towed to land by a kayaker, it seems, 
according to the standards of American civilization, an 



THE ESKIMOS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 163 

extremely selfish and lazy act for the kayaker to aban- 
don it to the women and children, leaving them the 
" drudgery " of all the further work, while he takes 
his kayak under his arm and retires to the igloo, or 
stretches himself in the sunshine upon some soft bed of 
moss. But really this is the proper thing for him to 
do, for the whole existence, not to say comfort, of the 




Fig. 40.— A company of Eskimo women on the outlook 



family depends upon the man's success in capturing the 
wild animals upon which they subsist ; and this is by far 
the most difficult and exhausting part of the work of 
maintaining existence amid the conditions of life which 
there prevail. For days together, perhaps, the hardy 
kayaker has faced the fiercest elements without shelter 
and with little food, and with the thermometer far be- 
low freezing. Everything depends upon his success in 
the chase, and the heroism and patience displayed by 
the hunters is almost incredible, while the physical 



104 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

exhaustion often proceeds to the very limit of endur- 
ance, and the accidents to which they are exposed are 
numerous — about ten per cent of the deaths being from 
that cause. Of four thousand four hundred and seventy 
deaths recorded in one portion of southern Greenland 
from 1782 to 1853, four hundred and fifteen arose from 
accidents to kayaks. In fact, the whole life of the suc- 
cessful Eskimo man is one of daring and heroism, such 
as is well calculated to enlist the admiration of woman's 
heart ; so that the part of the work which the women 
undertake to do is performed with great alacrity and 
cheerfulness, and is such as in the main could not well 
be done by the men without interfering with their effi- 
ciency in the more imperative duties which devolve upon 
them. The women, being always at home, naturally 
have charge of the material which is brought in for the 
support of all. 

It is a busy scene which follows when a kayaker has 
captured and successfully brought to land a seal of ordi- 
nary dimensions. The women immediately seize the ani- 
mal, and, stretching it out upon the shore, strip it of its 
skin, which in due time they are to manipulate for the in- 
numerable uses to which it may be put. Chunks of blub- 
ber are distributed around to the eager crowd of children 
and others, who devour them with all the avidity which an 
American schoolgirl manifests for candy. What remains 
of the blubber is carefully stowed away for use in the 
ever-burning lamp. The meat also is stripped off from 
the bones in preparation for a universal feast, and is in 
general eaten without being cooked ; while the undi- 
gested food in the stomach of the animal is preserved 
as a most precious delicacy, and the sinews and entrails 
are laid aside to be manufactured into thread and thongs 
of most enduring character. 



THE ESKIMOS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 165 

The preparation of the skins for use varies according 
to the objects in view ; but one of the most essential 
operations, which is always performed by the women, 
consists in chewing the hide — a process which serves 
the double purpose of removing from it the adhering 
fat and oil and of rendering it pliable, Chewing is 
done by doubling up the hide into a fold, so that a por- 
tion can readily be inserted in the mouth, where it is 
munched until all the fat is extracted and the whole 
made soft. This w T ork renders it necessary for the 
women to have good teeth, and it is noticeable that 
Providence has in general supplied them with such ; 
whether as a direct result of their use from childhood, 
or by the indirect process of natural selection, it is dif- 
ficult to tell. But it is certain that women provided 
with teeth well adapted for the preparation of hides 
must have a great advantage over those less generously 
provided, and must be sought for more frequently as 
suitable companions for the most heroic and successful 
hunters. 

The skins of the eider duck, the kittiwake, ptarmi- 
gan, and other birds are prepared by the women in a 
similar manner, this serving as a sort of knitting-work 
in the intervals between the severer tasks of rendering 
pliable the skins of the larger animals. So severe is the 
work of munching the seal skins that a day of labour 
upon them is followed by a day of rest. The women 
are also relied upon to mend the seal-skin boots, which 
are so essential in all Greenland expeditions. These, 
too, have to be rendered pliable by chewing before the 
rips are closed up or the patches sewed on. It is evident 
that the Greenland women get along very comfortably 
without the use of gum. 

The women show much taste and skill in the manu- 



166 



GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 



facture and ornamentation of their clothing. The leath- 
er for their boots is usually coloured a beautiful blue, 
and the boot-tops are ornamented with stripes pleasing 
both in colour and in form. The short trousers are 
made of undressed reindeer skin, variegated with stripes 




Fig. 41.— Eskimo household servants. Married and unmarried. 



of fur from other animals of a different colour ; and in 
the summer time the blouse, which comes down to the 
hips, is covered upon the outside with cloth of appro- 
priate figure, and ornamented with a band of a different 
colour around the bottom ; while a necklace of coloured 
beads covers the shoulders and breast when in full dress, 



THE ESKIMOS OP THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 167 

and the hair is pulled up from every side to the top of the 
head, and, after being made into a compact roll, is tightly 
bound with a ribbon, whose colour indicates the condition 
of the wearer. The unmarried women bind their hair in 
red, the married in blue, and the widows in black, min- 
gling blue with it, however, and surrounding the fore- 
head by a narrow band of white when they have mourned 
a sufficient length of time and are ready to marry again. 

The great abundance of birds supply both men and 
women with ample material with which to provide their 
blouses with a warm lining. The skins are stripped 
bodily from the breasts of the birds, and, after being 
carefully chewed and tanned, are sewed together with 
much skill to fit the body, with the feathers inward. 
Beautiful quilts are also made from the skins, present- 
ing upon one side the soft down of the eider duck, and 
upon the other the thicker but coarser feathers of the 
kittiwake, the auk, or the ptarmigan. 

The women, like the men in Danish Greenland, can 
all read and write, and are extremely fond of music and 
dancing. In the long days of summer they never seem 
too tired to gather on some level place in front of their 
houses and dance their beautiful quadrilles to music of 
their own singing. In one favourite dance the partners, 
at certain intervals, draw off from each other in a very 
graceful manner, and shake the forefinger of each hand 
in succession three times in the face of the other, and 
clap their hands together three times in the rhythm of 
the music, when they join hands again to move on as 
before. Indeed, the heart seems as merry in the midst 
of Greenland's icy mountains as it is in the sunny islands 
of the south Pacific, proving how easy it is everywhere 
for man to rise above his environment and make his life 
worth living. 



168 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

Doubtless Christianity lias done much to ameliorate 
the condition of women in Danish Greenland, but even 
among the heathen Eskimos on the east coast and north 
of Melville Bay the apparent hardships to which widows 
and orphans are subjected have some foundation of ex- 
cuse in the severity of the conditions of life to which 
they are compelled to adjust themselves ; for so near are 
they living all the while upon the verge of starvation that 
the community can not take upon itself the responsi- 
bility of providing for an indefinite number of non- 
producers. Each man has all he can do to provide for 
his own family ; so that when a widow is left with in- 
fant children there is an appearance of hard necessity 
driving them to leave these helpless ones to their fate. 
It is often a question between leaving one family to 
starve by itself or all starving together. The problem 
and the extremity of the resort are not so different as 
they seem from those which sometimes confront us in 
civilized lands, where the population in any district has 
increased faster than the means of subsistence have done. 



CHAPTER VII. 

EUROPEANS IX GREENLAND. 

The discovery of Greenland by Europeans took place 
in the latter part of the tenth century, when colonists 
from Iceland and Scandinavia were attracted thither in 
considerable numbers and established a civilization which 
maintained itself for four centuries. The discoverer was 
an Icelander named Eric the Red, a freebooter, who was 
compelled to leave his country for his country's' good. 
A few years before he set out upon his voyage of dis- 
covery another Icelandic adventurer, named Gunnibjorn, 
had been driven by fierce storms westward into unknown 
waters, where he came in sight of islands which proba- 
bly belonged to the eastern coast of Greenland, or per- 
haps of the coast itself, but he made no attempts to 
land. His reports, however, stimulated the hope of 
Eric, and guided him in his efforts to discover a new 
country where he should be undisturbed by enemies. 
He was successful in finding harbours in the southern 
part of Greenland, where he spent two winters. This 
was about the year 982, and the portion of the coast 
explored by him is that between Cape Farewell and 
Julianshaab, about latitude 60°, the region known as 
the Eastern Bygd, or Colony. 

When the term of Eric's banishment had expired he 
went back to Iceland, and, partly by giving an attractive 
name to the region, induced twenty-five ships to return 

169 



170 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

with him ; but, of these, eleven were driven back or 
wrecked. Kink expresses the feeling of all who read 
the history, when he says that it is amazing " that Eric 
and his followers in the course of three or four years 




Fig. 42.— Arrival of the Rigel for relief of the Miranda. 

should be able to find out what in modern times only 
repeated exploring expeditions extending over more than 
one hundred years at length succeeded in rediscovering, 
notwithstanding the enormous advantages furnished by 
science and new inventions and the assistance rendered 
by government to later explorers. The first obstacle en- 
countered by the voyagers to Greenland is the border of 
drift ice that commonly guards the coast, which is gen- 
erally so narrow that the vessels outside can sight the 
land across it, and yet so thick and dense that it be- 
comes more or less impossible to force a way through 
it. Second, if we succeed in reaching the shore we 
meet with labyrinths of rocks, islands, and bluff head- 



EUROPEANS IN GREENLAND. 171 

lands, all of them barren and desolate, offering at first 
sight nothing that would seem to secure the necessary 
means of subsistence for human inhabitants. Numer- 
ous inlets are found between these islands and peninsu- 
las leading farther into the inner country, and here, no 
less than thirty to forty miles' distance or even farther 
away from the outer islands, small tracts of flat lands 
will be found which might well have appeared inhabit- 
able to the ancient discoverers. How they ever found 
out these spots, far apart from one another and totally 
hidden behind the craggy and ice-covered highlands, is 
a matter of surprise. When Eric had first sighted the 
land opposite to the coast of Iceland he found it encum- 
bered with the same barrier of drift ice which in modern 
times has frustrated so many hazardous attempts to reach 
the coast. We may also conclude that he attempted to 
force his way through it in many places before he sailed 
four hundred miles to the southwest and rounded Cape 
Farewell, and, having finally succeeded in landing, he 
must afterward be supposed to have tried hundreds of 
sounds, deceptive inlets and creeks, or ads-de-sac, on 
the coast bordering Davis Strait at a stretch of four 
hundred miles. 

"With all the detailed knowledge which has now 
been acquired regarding the same course, the Danes 
having had establishments there for more than a cen- 
tury, no better localities for settlers have yet been found 
than those which Eric of old pointed out to his follow- 
ers in the fourteen ships which succeeded in reaching 
the country."* 

Three years later, in the year 999, Leif, a son of Eric 
the Red, visited Norway, where he met Olaf Tryggvas- 



* Danish Greenland, pp. 4, 5. 



172 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

son, the king, who was just then exhibiting the zeal of 
a new convert in the spread of Christianity. By the 
arguments of the king the adventurer was converted, 
and in the following summer returned to Greenland, 
taking with him a priest, whose persuasive arguments, 
joined to those of Leif, were successful in the con- 
version, of Eric, who, with all his followers, was soon 
after baptized. 

In due time the colonies spread as far north as Godt- 
haab, in latitude 64°. But the only means of commu- 
nication between the two settlements was by boat, and 
six days were required for the passage. The east settle- 
ment eventually grew to contain twelve parishes and one 
hundred and ninety farms, and supjDorted two monas- 
teries and a cathedral. The west district had four par- 
ishes and one hundred farms. Numerous ruins still 
exist marking the site of these early settlements, one of 
which is believed by Rink to be the very house in which 
Eric took up his first abode. This, as indicated in an 
earlier chapter, is situated near Igaliko, in latitude 61° 
50', at the end of a fiord extending forty or fifty miles 
toward the inland ice from Julianshaab. The steep face 
of a precipice formed one side of the house, while the 
walls on the other side and at the ends consist of red 
sandstone blocks more than four feet thick. Until re- 
cently the entrance to this was still preserved, " meas- 
uring about six feet in height and four feet in breadth." 
Some of the stones in the wall measure from four to six 
feet in cubical dimensions. The house was about forty 
feet in length by twenty feet in breadth. The ruins of a 
church are found near by, with fragments of sculptured 
stone, indicating Christian burial places. 

At this period Greenland was not wholly devoid of 
literature. In connection with the establishment of 



EUROPEANS IN GREENLAND. 173 

Christianity poets and annalists arose who have trans- 
mitted to us thrilling stories concerning adventurers, 
who, not satisfied with the laurels already won, pushed 
farther out to the west and south in search of new lands. 
According to these sagas, Leif succeeded in crossing 
Davis Strait and reaching the coast of Labrador or 
Newfoundland, and even extended his voyage as far 
south as Massachusetts, where wild grapes were discov- 
ered. Bringing back a cargo of timber and grapes to 
Greenland, great excitement was produced, so that in 
the coming year Leif's brother Thorvald, with thirty 
men, visited Vinland, where he spent two winters, but 
was eventually killed by the natives, who, from the de- 
scription, are thought by many to have been Eskimos. 

Two years later, after the return of Thorvald's expe- 
dition, Torfin Karlsefne came over from Norway and 
spent a winter in Greenland, and married a relation of 
Eric's. The following summer he sailed with one hun- 
dred and sixty men and reached Vinland, where he re- 
mained five or six years, having more or less intercourse 
with the natives. There seems little doubt that New- 
foundland, Nova Scotia, and Massachusetts were visited 
by these adventurers, and that some of the people they 
encountered were also Eskimos. But no permanent set- 
tlement was made in the newly discovered land, and vis- 
its to North America became more and more infrequent, 
until they were finally discontinued entirely. 

Meanwhile the coast of Greenland, both to the east 
and to the north, were explored, and settlements were 
made upon the west coast as far up as the sixty-fifth de- 
gree of latitude. A runic stone, indicating at least a 
temporary visit of these early colonists of Greenland, 
was found as far north as 73°. The date upon it was 
1235, while there is some evidence that in 1266 an ex- 



174 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

pedition visited Lancaster Sound and reached a latitude 
of 75° 46'. 

From the number of Norse ruins existing in Green- 
land it is thought by some that the population may 
have reached several thousand, and, according to the 
records, while they had to import all timber and iron, 
their exports show that they raised sheep and oxen to a 
limited extent, and were successful in killing seal and 
walrus. Bread, however, was said to have been, then as 
now, utterly unknown, while reindeer, whales, and bears 
contributed to their necessities and comfort. Evidently 
the conditions of the country have changed but little 
since. It is said that as late as 1484 there were " forty 
men in Bergen, Norway, who were acquainted with 
Greenland navigation, and used annually to bring home 
precious cargoes from that country." After that date 
all communication with Greenland ceased until it was 
rediscovered by Davis in 1585. 

Upon the rediscovery of Greenland vigorous efforts 
were put forth to find the descendants of the colonists 
who had been so long neglected ; but none have ever 
been found, and there has been great disappointment as 
to the extent of the ruins of the former settlements and 
of the cultivable land surrounding them. The fact 
seems to be that there never was much cultivation of 
the soil in Greenland. 

The failure to find these colonies on the accessible 
shore of western Greenland has led to many efforts to 
find them on the east coast; but these have only re- 
sulted in proving that the east coast was never inhab- 
ited by Europeans. Even as late as 1883, Nordenskjold 
cherished the hope that a habitable region existed in 
the interior of Greenland which he supposed was not 
reached by the heavy snowstorms that characterized the 



EUROPEANS IN GREENLAND. 



175 



coasts. Bat the exploration of the interior has demon- 
strated that it is entirely enveloped with ice, and fur- 



■ 




nishes no conditions for supporting the life of either 
man or beast. 

A popular impression has been that the early colonies 
were destroyed by the Eskimos near the middle of the 
13 



176 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

fourteenth century, about which time it is said they first 
came in contact with them in the neighbourhood of 
Disco Island. But it is doubtful if there is any truth 
in this legend. It is more likely that the decay of the 
colonies was hastened by the " black death," which dev- 
astated so much of Europe during the middle of the 
fourteenth century, and which was extremely fatal in 
Trondhjem, the Norwegian port which had most trade 
with Greenland. Rink is of the ojnnion that the Euro- 
pean settlers became intermixed with the Eskimos, who 
advanced upon them in the latter part of the fourteenth 
century, and that very likely their descendants are still 
to be found among the present natives of Greenland, 
many of whom even on the east coast show distinct 
traces of European descent. As contributory causes of 
the decline of the early Norse colonies, we must con- 
sider also the many feuds that were continually arising 
among themselves, and the difficulty of maintaining a 
comfortable subsistence when intercourse with Iceland 
and Norway ceased. 

After the rediscovery of Greenland by Davis, in 1585, 
more than a century elapsed before effectual colonization 
began again. In 1605 the King of Denmark sent out 
an exploring expedition, which went as far north as the 
sixty-seventh degree of latitude, and returned with many 
articles of commerce and with two or three of the na- 
tives whom they had captured and brought away against 
their will ; but subsequent efforts were not so successful, 
and the country was only infrequently visited during the 
remainder of the century. 

The present development of Danish occupation and 
control dates from July 3, 1721, when Hans Egede with 
his wife and children landed at the place now called 
Godthaab, and established a Christian mission for the 



EUROPEANS IN GREENLAND. 177 

conversion of the natives. It was hoped that the trade 
of the colony might be sufficient to make it self-support- 
ing, but this proved delusive. Among the most inter- 
esting but unprofitable efforts of the Danish Government 
to infuse life into the colony was that of 1728, when a 
military expedition, consisting of twenty-five soldiers 
with their proper officers and eleven horses, was sent 
from Denmark to explore the interior. But the horses 
were of course useless and soon died, while the governor 
found that the interior was but a barren waste of ice. 
During the first winter the soldiers and other colonists 
who had been sent with them endured unspeakable hard- 
ships, and no less than forty died of diseases. 

The difficulties encountered by Egede were such as 
would have discouraged any less devoted man. The 
language was difficult to master, and for years he had 
to depend on pictures to convey to the Eskimo the new 
ideas of the Christian religion. At first, also, they took 
him to be an angefcofc, or medicine man, whose author- 
ity could be sustained only by a miraculous healing of 
the sick. Two orphan boys to whom he had given spe- 
cial instruction left him at length, declaring that he was 
of no account, and could do nothing " but look in a book 
and scrawl with a feather," whereas their own country- 
men " could hunt seals and shoot birds." 

In 1731 the death of King Frederick IV, who had 
been the chief patron of the mission, brought things to 
a crisis, and orders were given for the Europeans all to 
come home. But Egede, who had just mastered the 
language and won his first converts, persuaded a few 
men to stay with him, and wrote a letter begging the 
new king not to abandon the work which had been be- 
gun with so much labour. This letter was effective, and 
the mission was continued. 



178 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

Soon after this, in 1733, the Moravians established a 
mission at New Herrnhut, in close proximity to Egede. 
Since that time the Lutherans and Moravians have con- 
tinued their work side by side. The Moravians now 
have six stations, but the main work has been done by 
the Lutheran missionaries on the foundations laid by 
Egede. 

Egede remained in Greenland until 1736, when his 
wife died and he himself was taken ill, which compelled 
him to return to Denmark, where he spent the rest of 
his life in broken health. His son, however, remained 
behind, and his fathers work was carried on with re- 
newed zeal and increasing success until, at the present 
time, the Eskimos in Danish Greenland are all nominally 
Christians, about two thousand of them being connected 
with the Moravian mission and about eight thousand 
with the Lutheran Church. Eight Lutheran mission- 
aries oversee the work of the numerous native cate- 
chists and schoolmasters who are employed to impart 
instruction directly to the people. These Danish mis- 
sionaries usually remain in Greenland only about ten 
years each. 

Notwithstanding the great difficulty of furnishing 
instruction to a people so widely scattered as the Green- 
landers are, the rudiments of education have been so 
effectively imparted to them that nearly all can now 
both read and write. A printing office is maintained at 
Godthaab, where about fifty volumes have been pub- 
lished. These comprise the Bible, about twenty re- 
ligious books, and sixteen entertaining story books, be- 
sides numerous schoolbooks. According to Kink, whose 
long residence in Greenland makes his testimony unim- 
peachable, " the greater part of the inhabitants are able 
to read tolerably well out of every book in their own Ian- 



EUROPEANS IN GREENLAND. 179 

guage. . . . The art of reading is not only familiar in 
every house, but reading also forms a favourite occupa- 
tion. . . . Carrying on correspondence by letters has be- 
come pretty frequent between the natives of different 
stations. . . . Moreover, the natives seem to be pecul- 
iarly talented as to acquiring a good hand in writing. 
. . . Scarcely any country exists where children are so 
ready to receive school instruction as Greenland ; it is 
almost considered more a diversion than a duty." * 

Everything in Greenland is under the control of the 
Danish Government, the management being committed 
to a board (the Kongelige Gronlandske Handel) residing 
in Copenhagen. Danish Greenland itself is divided into 
two inspectorates, the northern and the southern, of 
which the respective capitals are Godhavn and Godthaab. 
The two inspectors are commissioned with the responsi- 
bility of carrying out the regulations of the board, and 
within the limits of those regulations have almost abso- 
lute power. A foreigner is not permitted to remain any 
length of time in Greenland without the permission of 
the inspector. 

In each district (of which we have given detailed 
account in a preceding chapter) there is a subordinate 
governor responsible to the inspector, and under him 
various post traders, though the trade is all made to 
centre in the capitals of these districts, which are visited 
annually by one or two Government vessels. Ordinarily, 
as has appeared in the detailed account, the capital of 
the district contains only three or four Danish dwell- 
ings, a storehouse, and a blubber-boiling house, around 
which are gathered the casks to hold the oil and the 
barrels to contain the fish which are to be exported. In 

* Danish Greenland, pp. 214-217. 



180 



GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 



some of the districts there is a clergyman, a teacher, a 
physician, and a Lutheran church, though in most of 
them the religious services are maintained by a native 
catechist, while the clergyman makes only occasional 
visits. 

At Sukkertoppen the Danish colony consisted, in 
1894, of the superintendent, Mr. Bistrup, and his assist- 




Fig. 44.— The Danish ladies at Sukkertoppen. 



ant, Mr. Baumann, and their wives and three children, 
and Miss Fausboll, a niece of the superintendent and 
daughter of the Professor of Sanscrit in Copenhagen 
University. Altogether, this little company of Danes 
lead a life which is by no means devoid of attraction. 
They are all highly educated, and speak and read Eng- 
lish readily. Their house is commodious, and well pro- 
tected against the weather. A two years' supply of 



EUROPEANS IN GREENLAND. 181 

provisions is always kept on hand, to guard against any 
failure in communication with, the outside world. An 
ample library, both of Danish and English books, fur- 
nishes them reading material during the long winter 
night, while the piano and their own cultivated voices 
provide them with music according to their various 
moods of feeling. Mr. Bistrup has been seventeen years 
in Greenland service, and, according to their regulations, 
will, after eight years more, be permitted to retire and 
return to Denmark upon a pension. Miss Fausboll is 
simply spending two or three years for an outing with 
her uncle, having charge meanwhile of the instruction 
of the children of the two families. They all speak 
with enthusiasm of the life, though longings for the 
home land could not altogether be suppressed. 

The salaries of the superintendents are fixed at £250 
a year, besides residence, fuel, and attendants. The 
salary of the inspectors is £328, while that of the 
clerks and assistants is £106. Besides these officials 
there are nearly 200 Danish outpost traders, seamen, 
and mechanics employed in Greenland, distributed 
pretty equally among the colonies and receiving an 
annual salary of £25 each, and, in the case of the 
traders, a percentage on the trade. 

The discomforts and inconveniences of official life 
in Greenland are manifest, but are endured with little 
complaint, all seeming to make the best of their circum- 
stances and to minimize their trials. In the posts where 
there are no physicians (which constitute a majority) it 
is necessary to be sick when the physician makes his 
semiannual round, in order to reap the benefit of his 
services. One of the ladies of Sukkertoppen was plan- 
ning, when we were there, to return to Copenhagen the 
next season to have a much-ueeded operation in den- 



182 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

tistry performed. Happily, we had an accomplished 
dentist from New York with us, who was able to do the 
work and relieve her of the burden of the long journey 
and separation from her family. It is related of the 
superintendent at Upernivik that he had brought to 
him annually from Denmark a file of daily papers, which 
were turned over to his wife with orders that a copy 
should be brought him each morning at breakfast a year 
after date. 

Though the Government is entirely in the hands of 
the Danish officials in Greenland, through the exertions 
of Dr. Rink, who was inspector of southern Greenland for 
twenty-five years or more, local councils were organized 
from the natives in every district. These consisted of 
delegates from every station " elected at the rate of about 
one representative to one hundred and twenty voters." 
This native council is invited to aid the regular officials, 
especially in distributing the surplus profits of trade and 
in general advice with reference to the welfare of the dis- 
trict. " It holds two sessions every year, and the discus- 
sions are entirely in the Eskimo language." They are the 
guardians of the poor, and both investigate and punish 
crimes and misdemeanours and divide inheritances. In 
cases of high misdemeanour they are permitted to inflict 
corporal punishment. But the character of the Eskimo 
is so peaceable that there is little work for this council to 
do aside from the distribution of relief to the needy. Dur- 
ing the first ten or twelve years after their establishment 
in 1857, the following were the principal causes submitted 
to trial : " One single case of having in passion occa- 
sioned the death of a person, and another of openly 
threatening ; five or six instances of grosser theft or 
cheating, and as many of concealment of birth and 
crimes relating to matrimony ; every year a few petty 



EUROPEANS IN GREENLAND. 



183 



thefts, and instances of making use of the tools of others 
without permission, or of like disorders; and several 
trifling litigations." * 




Fig. 45.— The governor's house at Sukkertoppen. 

With the great preponderance of women among the 
Eskimos consequent upon the hazardous nature of the 
occupations of the men, it would seem as if the servant-girl 
question might be easily solved in Greenland ; but such, 
we are informed, is not the case. The native women 
are restive under the restraints and duties of civilized 



* Robert Brown, in Encyclopaedia Britannica. 



184 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

housekeeping. So long as they can be persuaded to re- 
main in service, their pleasant faces, mild manners, and 
generally docile spirit make them unusually acceptable 
servants. Dressed in their attractive native costume, 
they move quietly about the house, attending to their 
duties, unencumbered by the long skirts of female attire 
in civilized countries, and, to the stranger, add much 
picturesqueness to the dinner parties so lavishly given 
by the Danish families. ' But their hearts are not in this 
service. They still prefer to mingle with those of their 
own kind, and wander away during the summer months 
on camping excursions or join in the long winter even- 
ings in the more agreeable tasks of chewing and tanning 
and working up the seal skins and bird skins brought 
into the igloos by the adventurous hunters of the other 
sex. 

In the year 1870 there were " in the service of the 
Danish mission 53 appointed teachers, besides several 
other teachers classed as seal hunters or fishers. In the 
service of the royal trade were 12 outpost traders, 15 
head men and boatswains, 14 carpenters and smiths, 19 
coopers, 15 cooks, 54 sailors and labourers, besides 10 
pensioners and 33 midwives ; five officers were enumerated 
as natives, but three of them are more properly Europeans. 
In the same year the Europeans numbered 237, of whom 
95 were engaged in the trade, 8 were Danish and 11 
Moravian missionaries, and 38 lived at the cryolite 
mines ; the rest were women and children." 

As already said, the trade of Greenland is a Govern- 
ment monopoly, having been taken up in the year 1774, 
when it had ceased to be profitable as a private mo- 
nopoly. Rink estimated that the earnings of the Es- 
kimo families average £8 each "from the produce of 
the hunt sold to royal officials." According to Robert 



EUROPEANS IN GREENLAND. 185 

Brown, during the twenty years from 1853 to 1872 the 
average annual exports of the material brought in by 
the natives " consisted of 1,185 tuns of oil, 35,439 seal 
skins, 1,436 fox skins, 41 bear skins, 881 waterproof 
jackets, 1,003 waterproof trousers, 3,533 pounds raw eider 
down, 6,900 pounds feathers, 2,300 pounds whalebone, 
550 narwhal ivory, 87 walrus ivory, and 1,817 reindeer 
hides." During the period of 1870 to 1874 " the mean 
annual value of the products received from Greenland 
(exclusive of cryolite) was £45,600 ; that of the cargoes 
sent thither, £23,844 ; and the mean expenditure on the 
ships and crews, £8,897. . . . The average profit of the 
Greenland trade was, for the twenty-one years between 
1853 and 1874, about £6,600 yearly. The capital sunk 
in the ' royal trade ' is calculated at £64,426 ; and, tak- 
ing the whole amount of net revenues from the present 
trade during the period from 1790 to 1875, the interest 
on the capital being subtracted, the director considers 
that £160,000 has been earned." According to the re- 
ports of 1892, the exports for that } T ear were valued at 
£32,000, which shows a considerable falling off from the 
earlier average. The product of the cryolite mine at 
Ivigtut, which was first opened in 1857, amounted to 
14,000 tons between that time and 1864. In that year 
the exports rose to a much higher figure, averaging a 
little over 10,000 tons annually for the next nine years. 
Since 1873, however, there has been a slight falling off, 
the yearly average being only 8,000 tons. The total 
value of the cryolite exported since 1871 has been 
about £450,000. From this the Danish Government 
has received a royalty of a little more than £100,000. 
Though the production is nearly as great now as ever, 
the substitution of bauxite for cryolite in the manu- 
facture of aluminium seems to render the mines rela- 



186 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

tively less important than they were formerly supposed 
to be. 

It thus appears that the present relation of Den- 
mark to Greenland is supported more by motives of 
humanity than by hope of profit, and the regulations of 
the Government have chiefly in view the protection of 
the native population, and all certainly bear marks of 
this humanitarian air. The prices to be paid for Euro- 
pean articles are fixed for every year, those current 
being printed in Danish and Eskimo and distributed by 
the Government. The traders sell European articles of 
necessity to the natives at cost, and bread at somewhat 
less than cost, while twenty per cent profit over the cost 
price in Denmark is all that is allowed to be charged 
on general merchandise. The price paid for native 
products is about twenty-two per cent of the value in 
European markets. One sixth of the price paid for the 
native products is " devoted to the Greenlanclers' public 
fund, spent in public works, in charity, and on other 
unforeseen contingencies," the expenditure of which is 
under the control of the council above described. 

The Danish Government has also done an important 
work in surveying and mapping the west coast, thereby 
adding largely to our knowledge of the geography of 
the country. The results of this work and all that is 
incidental to it, such as the collection of facts concern- 
ing the language, character, and history of the Eskimos, 
the early European settlements in the country, and the 
meteorology of the region, have been published in an 
elegant series of annual monographs, partly in Danish 
and partly in English, entitled Meddeleser om Gron- 
land. 

The prospect of any marked commercial or social 
improvement, however, is not encouraging. The cap- 



EUROPEANS IN GREENLAND. 187 

ture of the whale has almost wholly ceased, while the 
reindeer have so diminished that there are scarcely 
enough to supply the wants of the natives, and some 
of the favourite haunts of the eider duck have become 
almost depleted of their occupants by thoughtless efforts 
of the natives to increase unduly the annual returns. 
Happily, however, most of the haunts, both of birds and 
of fish, as well as of the seal, are so guarded by Nature 
that they can not well be seriously interfered with by 
any agencies that are likely to be employed. It is 
greatly to be hoped that profit enough may continue to 
attend Danish control in Greenland to make it and its 
protection to the natives as continuous as it is benefi- 
cent. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE PLANTS OF GREENLAND. 

The verdure which the old Norse discoverer com- 
memorated in the name Greenland is scanty in com- 
parison with that of all other inhabited countries. 
Mountains whose surface is mostly bare rock, usually 
of sombre gray or dark colours, form the Greenland 
coast throughout its extent of four thousand miles or 
more. But even the rocks, excej^t in the most precipi- 
tous and bleak places, are overgrown with lichens, which 
likewise are usually of dark and dull-gray colours, strong- 
ly in contrast with the snow that is drifted deeply into 
the ravines and there endures nearly to the end of the 
short summer. On the higher slopes of many of the 
mountains the snow is never wholly melted away, and 
so forms small local icefields, from which glaciers de- 
scend in the valleys. In the general view from a ship 
passing along the coast, the dark gray of the rugged 
landscape and the white of the neve fields and local gla- 
ciers, and of the larger glaciers flowing down from the 
inland ice sheet, suggest that this is the last part of the 
world, excepting only the more completely ice-enveloped 
antarctic continent, to deserve its attractive name. 

Nearer inspection of the land, however, gained by 
entering any of its long western fiords, reveals many 
beautiful bits of scenery, where, between the frowning 
mountain sides and the deep, riverlike, crooking fiord, 

188 



THE PLANTS OP GREENLAND. Ig9 

green patches of sedges and grasses are bedecked with 
hardy northern and arctic flowers. Increasing variety 
of the vegetation, and many shrubs or even dwarf trees, 
often forming considerable thickets along the ravines, 
are seen in proceeding toward the head of the fiord ; 
the moist and cold sea winds on the outer coast giving 
a mean summer temperature several degrees lower than 
that of the more sheltered, less stormy, and more sunny 
inner fiord valleys. 

During the two or three months favourable for the 
growth of vegetation the headlands and islands of the 
coast, wherever the rocks are covered by the thin glacial 
drift or decomposing rock in sufficient amount to pro- 
vide a soil, bear a considerable variety of mosses, sedges, 
and very low, matted shrubs. The most conspicuous of 
the shrubby plants there and nearly everywhere through- 
out the land tracts of Greenland is the crowberry or cur- 
lew berry (Empetrum nigrum), whose juicy black fruit, 
matured by the early autumn frosts, is much enjoyed 
by the Eskimos, and which INansen and his companions 
found in luxuriant abundance, and ate of very heartily 
on their reaching the land at the western base of the ice 
sheet late in September. Dr. Kink tells us that it is the 
only berry or fruit used by the natives, and that, except 
in marshy places, one can hardly cut out a sod anywhere 
without including roots and branches of this heathlike 
procumbent evergreen. He further writes : 

In warm summers berries begin to turn black in the middle of 
July, but they are not edible before August. At the end of this 
month the night frosts prevent their decay, and berries may be 
found throughout the winter by scraping away the snow. They 
are perfectly fresh when they come to light by the melting of the 
snow in May and June. The abundance of these fruits in favour- 
able years is really surprising. Even in 69" north latitude the 



THE PLANTS OF GREENLAND. 191 

creeping branches may be seen so laden with fruit that they re- 
semble bunches of grapes, and almost blacken the ground.* 

About the mouths of the fiords, having a somewhat 
more sheltered position than the outer islands and the 
capes of the mainland, two species of willow (Salix 
arctica and S. glauca) and the dwarf birch (Betula 
nana) thrive, fixing their roots in the clefts of the rocks 
and creeping along the ground, with stems sometimes 
six to eight feet long and one to three inches in diam- 
eter, much knotted and twisted, and rising to maximum 
heights of two or three feet. Among the flowers noted 
by Eink as found there in bloom during July and Au- 
gust are the Lapland rhododendron, several others of 
the heath family, numerous species of saxifrage, willow- 
herb (Epilobium), lousewort (Pedicular is), and bell- 
flower (Campanula), the narrow-leaved arnica, species 
of cinquefoil (Potent ilia), crowfoot (Ranunculus), and 
others, rose-coloured, blue, purple, yellow, and white, 
which beautifully diversify the prevalent brownish 
green of the spots occupied with vegetation. 

Near the heads of the fiords, from ten or twenty 
miles to fifty miles or more from the outer coast, south- 
ern Greenland has thickets or copses of alder (Alnus 
repens) extending northward some fifty miles beyond 
Godthaab, and of a white birch (Betula alpestris), which 
is only found south of Frederikshaab. The dwarf ju- 
niper (Juniperus nana), which is the only coniferous 
species occurring in Greenland, has a w 7 ider range but 
attains its maximum size in these sheltered valleys, its 
prostrate stems having sometimes a thickness of five to 
six inches, though commonly no more than two or three 
inches. 

* Danish Greenland, p. 88. 
14 



192 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

Besides the crowberry, the only other edible berries 
are the bog whortleberry or bilberry (Vaccinium uligi- 
nosum) and the cowberry ( Vaccinium Vitis-Idcea), both 
of which grow also in northern Europe and extend 
southward in North America to the White Mountains 
and the north coast of Lake Superior. The cloudberry 
(Rubiis Chammmorus) is common near Godthaab, where, 
according to Rink, it may be seen flowering prettily even 
on the outer shores, but its fruit very rarely ripens. This 
species, which also is European, extends south to the 
White Mountains, and occurs locally on the coast of 
Maine. 

There are several plants of which the flowers, buds, 
leaves, or roots are eaten by the Eskimos, generally in a 
raw state. The most prized is the Arcliangelica offici- 
nalis, somewhat resembling celery. It grows to a height 
of six feet in favourable spots of the fiord valleys, and 
extends northward to Disco Island. The young stalks 
are brittle and sweet, with a flavour like that of carrots. 
The nutritious lichen called Iceland moss (Cetraria is- 
landica) is common, and has a wide range in both lati- 
tude and altitude, but attains its greatest abundance on 
the outlying southern islands. The chief resources of 
vegetable food, however, are marine, as noted by Dr. 
Rink : 

Seaweeds may perhaps be considered the most important vege- 
table diet of the Eskimo, because they have in many cases saved 
people from death by starvation. The species most commonly 
eaten is Alaria Pylaii, closely allied to the edible "hen ware" or 
" bladderlocks " of Scotland, the Suvdluitsoh (i. e., without hollow- 
ness) of the Greenlander. which has a soft stalk as thick as that of 
an asparagus, and headed by a broad leaf. . . . Another kind, 
Chorda filum, the " sea laces " of the English fishermen, the Aug- 
pilagtok (i. e., red) of the Eskimo, is considered more delicate, but 
is less abundant. Both these kinds are also eaten when there is 



THE PLANTS OF GREENLAND. 193 

no lack of food, but there is a third sort, smaller in size and far 
more common, which is only resorted to in time of need.* 

The chief fuel used by the Danish people in Green- 
land is the peaty turf, six to eight inches thick, formed 
commonly on sloping hillsides by the matted growth of 
plants. It is cut in proper size for use and thoroughly 
dried in the summer— a necessary exercise of foresight 
which mainly prevents its use by the Eskimos. Bog 
peat similar to that of temperate countries, but attain- 
ing a thickness of only one or two feet, also occurs occa- 
sionally in the glens or ravines tributary to the southern 
fiords as far northward as G-odthaab (latitude 64°). 

In addition to the species of phaenogamous plants 
already mentioned, the following, as enumerated by Dr. 
Bink, are the most abundant on the turfy slopes : four 
grasses, Alopecurtis alpinus, Hierochloa alpina (also oc- 
curring on the mountain tops of New England and New 
York), Poa pratensis (common southward to the central 
United States, where it is well known as the Kentucky 
blue grass), and Festuca brevifolia ; eight sedges, Carex 
Wormshjoldiu C. capitata, 0. nardina, C. glareosa, C. 
Valilii, C. hyperborea, C. rariflora, and G. supina ; two 
species of cotton grass, Erioptlioram Sclieuclizeri and E. 
angustifolhim ; three species of wood rush, Luzula spi- 
cata, L. multijlora, and L. parviftora, of which the first 
and third occur on the summits of the White Mountains 
in New Hampshire ; Juncus higlumis ; Scdix herbacea, 
a very small, herblike willow, rising only a few inches 
above the ground, found also on the White Mountains ; 
Thymus serpyllum ; Diapensia Lapponica, found on 
the tops of the White and Adirondack Mountains; four 

* Op. cit, p. 90. 



194 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

of the heath family, namely, Azalea (Loiseleuria) pro- 
c'limbens, which again is a species of the White Moun- 
tains, Ledum Gramlandicum, Phyllodoce cmrulea, and 
Andromeda teiragona; six species of saxifrage, namely, 
Saxifraga stellaris, S. nivalis, S. rivularis, S. cmspitosa, 
S. tricuspidata, and 8. oppositifolia ; and six representa- 
tives of the rose family, Dry as integrifolia, Sibbaldia 
procumbens, Potentilla nivea, P. emarginata, P. macu- 
lata, and P. tridentata. The geographic range of the 
last reaches south to Cape Cod, the Alleghany Moun- 
tains, and northern Iowa. 

Dr. E. K. Kane, in the two Grinnell expeditions — 
the first in 1850 and the second in 1853-'55 — collected 
106 species of flowering plants along the coast of Green- 
land from Sukkertoppen to the latitude of 81°. These 
plants are preserved in the herbarium of the Philadel- 
phia Academy of Natural Sciences. According to Du- 
rand's report of Dr. Kane's collections, 73 species were 
from the coast north of Upernivik and the parallel of 
73°, while 85 species were collected at Upernivik and 
southward, 52 of these being also found in the region 
farther north. Giesecke's catalogue, published in Brew- 
ster's Edinburgh Encyclopaedia in 1832, enumerated 171 
phaBiiogamous species of Greenland; and two years earlier 
E. Meyer, in his Plantm Labrador •icce, noted 224 phse- 
nogams, of which the greater part are indigenous in both 
Labrador and Greenland. Mr. Durand's, compilation in 
185G, from these and all other available sources, gave a 
total of 264 phsenogamous plants occurring in Green- 
land, belonging to 109 genera and 36 families ; of which 
76 species, in 44 genera and 20 families, were recorded 
north of latitude 73°. The cryptogams of Dr. Kane's 
collections, also reported by Durand, comprised 42 spe- 
cies, being one Equisetum, three ferns, three species of 



THE PLANTS OF GREENLAND. 195 

Lycopodium, twenty-five mosses, four species in the class 
Hepaticeae, and six thallophytes (lichens).* 

Dr. Isaac I. Hayes, in his polar voyage in 1860-'61, 
wintering at Port Foulke (latitude 78° 10'), with a sledge 
journey northward along the east coast of Grinnell Land 
to Lady Franklin Bay (latitude 81° 40'), from which 
the return was made late in May, collected several 
thousand botanical specimens in that region northward 
from Whale Sound and Inglefield Gulf (latitude 77° to 
78°). His plants, mostly collected at Port Foulke, in 
Greenland, are referred by Durand to 52 species, repre- 
senting 36 genera and 18 families. They include five or 
six species that were not in Dr. Kane's list, and about a 
dozen which that list had not recorded for the tract 
north of 73°. The orders or families most largely rep- 
resented in this far northern region are the Oruciferae 
(mustard or cress family), 4 genera, with 8 species; the 
Caryophyllaceae (pink family), 5 genera, with 7 species.; 
the Rosacea? (rose family), 3 genera, 5 species; the saxi- 
frage family, represented by 7 species of saxifrage ; and 
the Gramineas (grass family), having there 5 genera, 
with 6 species. It is quite notable that the very large 
genus Carex (sedge), which has about 150 species in the 
Northern United States east of the Mississippi, and which 
has 44 species in southern Greenland, is represented in 
this very thorough observation and collection of the 
flora north of Inglefield Gulf by only one species, f 

A very complete synopsis of the Greenland flora is 
given by Dr. Henry Rink in his valuable w r ork, to 
which reference has been already so frequently made in 

* Appendix xviii of Kane's Arctic Explorations. 1856, pp. 442-= 
467. 

f The Open Polar Sea, I. I. Hayes, 1867, pp. 398, 399, 



196 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

this chapter. When his book was first issued in Den- 
mark in 1857, the enumeration of the phrenogamous or 
flowering plants comprised 320 species ; but in 1877, when 
his new edition, and its translation into English with 
the aid of the distinguished botanist Dr. Robert Brown, 
appeared, this list had been enlarged to 361. Eighteen 
genera of the grass family are represented, with a total 
of 44 species. The largest genera are Poa, with 10 
species, and Glyceria, 7 species. Both these genera are 
still more largely represented in the northern United 
States. The total of the Cyperacese (sedge family) is 51 
species, in 6 genera, one of which (Carex), as before 
noted, has 44 species. Of the rush family, the genus 
Juncus has 9 species, and Luzula 6 species. The cosmo- 
politan orchis family, though best developed in warm 
temperate and tropical countries, notably in the Hima- 
laya Mountains, has 4 genera (5 species) in Greenland- 
Birches are represented by 4 species, and there are 6 
species of willows. The Composite, including daisies 
and dandelions, have 22 Greenland species, in 10 genera, 
the Hieracium, or hawkweed, having there 6 species. 
The Scrophulariaceae (figwort family) have 6 genera, one 
(Pedicularis) having 7 species. Among the 10 genera 
of the heath family, the most numerous is the Pyrola 
(wintergreen), with 4 species. The genus Saxifraga, 
the only one of its family, has 12 species. The Ranun- 
culaceas (buttercup or crowfoot family) have 5 genera, 
each of one species in Greenland, excepting Ranunculus, 
which has 10. In the cress family, 13 genera comprise 
25 species, of which 9 belong to Draba (whitlow grass). 
There are 3 species of gentian, two primroses, a poppy 
(extending to northern Greenland and Grinnell Land), 
and 3 species of violets. Nine genera of the pink fam- 
ily have 27 species, the most numerous being Stellaria 



THE PLANTS OF GREENLAND. 197 

(starwort), 6 species; Sagina (pearlwort), 5; and Alsine 
and Cerastium, each having 4 species. Finally, the rose 
family is represented by 17 species, in 7 genera, of which 
Potentilla (cinqnefoil or five-finger) claims 8 species, or 
nearly the same number as are found in New England. 

These details may convey the impression that the 
land border of Greenland, outside its ice sheet, has a 
somewhat rich flora ; but this is the reverse of the truth, 
whether it is compared with the flora of Canada and 
the Northern States or with other arctic regions, as 
northern Europe, or the northern part of our continent 
and the adjoining archipelago. In this place we will 
only note that the flora of New England has about 1,300 
native phamogams or flowering plants ; that Minnesota 
has about 1,600 ; and California about 2,500. 

Of acrogenous cryptogams, or the ferns and their 
allies, Greenland has 24 species. Thirteen are ferns 
in 6 genera, Polypodium and Woodsia having each 3 
species. The genus Equisetum (horsetail) is represented 
by 4 species, and Lycopodium (club moss or trailing 
evergreen) by 5 species. 

In the lower orders of cryptogams, Dr. Robert 
Brown, in an appendix of his English edition of Rink's 
work, enumerates 231 mosses and liverworts, 90 marine 
and fresh-water alga?, 203 lichens, and 10 fungi, or a 
total of 534 species. The list of fungi, however, espe- 
cially of moulds and blights parasitic on the plants of 
higher orders, may certainly be very greatly increased 
by further special collections and studies. Even on the 
dried plants brought by the German expedition to eastern 
Greenland a dozen such parasitic fungi were identified. 

As one of the glaciers in the Alps has a " garden " 
inclosed by the divided ice stream, so the nunataks, or 
tops of hills and mountains projecting above the Green- 



198 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

land ice sheet, have their summer greenery and flowers. 
For example, on Jensen's nunataks, a cluster of rocky 
peaks rising 100 to 500 feet above the inland ice, at a dis- 
tance of nearly 50 miles back (east-northeastward) from 
the foot of the Frederikshaab glacier (latitude 62° 30') 
and 20 miles from the nearest land outside the ice sheet, 
Kornerup, the geologist and botanist of Lieutenant Jen- 
sen's party, in 1878, collected 27 species of flowering 
plants. The ice surface there is 4,900 to 5,150 feet, or 
nearly one mile, above the sea; and the nunatak sum- 
mits vary in height from 5,200 to 5,650 feet. This very 
high and isolated flora comprised an abundance of Lu- 
zula hyperborea and Garex nardina ; the grasses Trise- 
tum subspicatum and Poa tricliopoda, in scattered tufts ; 
the sorrel, Oxyria digyna\ the white-flowering Ceras- 
tium alpinum and Saxifraga oppositifolia ; the little 
blue-flowering Campanula unifiora ; Potentilla nivea, 
Ranunculus pygmwus, Silene acaulis, Cassiope hyp- 
noides, and Armeria Sibirica ; and the very hardy, yel- 
low-flowering arctic poppy, Papaver nudicaule, was 
growing on the top of the highest nunatak. The same 
species of Oxyria, Trisetum, Silene, and Cassiope are 
among the arctic plants left stranded at the close of the 
Glacial period in New England on the White Moun- 
tains, while this most plentiful Greenland saxifrage is 
similarly found on the Green Mountains. Their altitude 
on the Greenland nunataks is closely the same as on 
these mountains, 1,300 miles farther south. 

Near latitude 71° 40', on the north side of a moun- 
tain ridge which rises to the altitude of about 5,000 
feet in a distance of five miles, bordering the Umanak 
Fiord, Dr. Rink relates that he found flowering plants 
to the height of 4,500 to 4,700 feet above the sea. His 
ascent was on July 30, 1851, during a cold and unpleas- 



THE PLANTS OF GREENLAND. 199 

ant summer. Concerning the vegetation of this moun- 
tain slope, and the limits of the perpetual snow and ice, 
he writes as follows : 

The foreland consisted of low rocky hills alternating with 
fresh green meadowlike glens, and exhibiting the usual shrubs, 
such as the willow, crowberry, and Andromeda. Crossing a plain 
scattered over with huge boulders, we arrive at a somewhat 
steeper slope or terrace, on the top of which, at a height of 1,000 
feet, the clouds are often seen to lie, enveloping the upper part of 
the mountains. It generally happens that when the sky has 
become clear after rains in September everything above this line 
appears scattered over with snow, while at the same time scarcely 
any snow has fallen on the lower land. Nevertheless, the surface 
was found to continue almost unaltered up to a height of 2,000 
feet ; the ground, consisting of gravel and clay, was covered by a 
thick sod containing almost the same plants as the low land. 
Only here and there a small heap of snow was concealed in some 
of the sheltered ravines ; but at a height of between 2,000 and 
3,000 feet the vegetable covering seemed decidedly thinner, the 
grasses and Cyperaceae, which form the chief part of the sod, dis- 
appear, and are succeeded by mosses. At a height of 3.000 feet 
the same mosses still entirely cover small boggy places adorned 
with blooming buttercups. But on arriving at 4,000 feet the 
vegetation ceases to form any continuous mass, the plants stand- 
ing singly in the gravel while the flat hollows are totally barren. 
The arctic willow finally disappears here, and several heaps of 
snow lie scattered over the ground, their under sheet consisting 
of solid ice. Footprints of reindeer and very old antlers were 
found here. Lastly, the increasing patches of snow at a height 
of 4,700 feet join to make a continuous sheet, leaving no ground 
visible. Close to the borders of the perpetual snowfield, among 
the numerous hillocks of ice and snow, at a height of more than 
4,500 feet, the following plants were collected: Papaver nudi- 
caule, Potentilla Vahliana, Saxifraga tricuspidata, S. oppositi- 
folia, S. ccespitosa, Alsine rubella, Silene acaulis, Drdba arctica, 
Festuca hrevifolia, Carex nardina. Some scanty and stunted 
specimens of lichens, too defective to admit of their species being 
duly determined, were also found. 

If we consider facts so apparently incompatible as plants in 



200 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

bloom at a height of 4,500 feet in 71° north latitude, and snow re- 
sisting the thawing of a whole summer's heat in 64° north latitude 
at less than 100 feet above the level of the sea, it will appear a 
rather difficult task to determine anything like a positive snow 
line. In fact, the formation of glaciers from snow, owing to its 
having lasted for several years and turned into solid ice, depends 
on many different local influences besides the height above the 
level of the sea. But still, on regarding the country as a whole, 
a certain degree of uniformity may be discovered in the appear- 
ance of the more considerable mountain ridges. It will be found 
that, at a height of from 2,000 to 2,200 feet or more, flat surfaces 
of some extent and more or less excavated surfaces have in most 
cases given rise to fields of perpetual snow and ice. From these 
accumulations glaciers arise, and are moved onwards even to the 
edge of the water, but glaciers originating at a lower height than 
this are only exceptional. In the same way clear ground above 
3,000 feet will be exceptional, and found to be caused by steep- 
ness, limited extent of a horizontal surface, and other accidental 
influences.* 

Even the surface of the snow and glaciers and of the 
ice sheet itself has in many places its own very minute 
cryptogamic plants. Some of these are found only on 
the snow and neve fields, and one (Protococcus nivalis) 
is the cause of " red snow," and, according to Chamber- 
lin, is accountahle, with red lichens, for the colour of the 
Crimson Cliffs (latitude 76°) northwest of Cape York. 
Six species of these snow algae, as they may be called, 
were collected by Norclenskjold and Berggren during 
their journey, in July, 1870, upon the inland ice near 
latitude 68° 20'. Two of these species, however, seemed 
to live only where the dust blown from the land of the 
west coast (but supposed by jSTordenskjold to be cosmic 
dust and named by him " kryoconite ") was collected in 
very plentiful little pits of the ice surface. 

* Danish Greenland, pp. 65-67. 



THE PLANTS OF GREENLAND. 201 

Discussing the areal distribution of arctic phaenoga- 
mous plants, Dr. Joseph D. Hooker found their whole 
number of species known to grow within the arctic cir- 
cle to be about 770. Among them all he notes that the 
Saxifraga oppositifolia, so common in Greenland, " is 
probably the most ubiquitous, and may be considered 
the commonest and most arctic flowering plant." Only 
eight or nine species are peculiar to the arctic zone, 
and the remaining 762 (214 monocotyledons and 548 
dicotyledons) extend also south of this zone. About 
600 advance beyond latitude 40° north in some parts of 
the world, and about 50 of these are identified as natives 
of the mountainous regions of the tropics, while 105 
occur in the south temperate zone. 

The explored circumpolar area of the arctic flora has 
a width of 10° to 14° in latitude. u The only abrupt 
change," writes Professor Asa Gray, " in the vegetation 
anywhere along this belt is at Baffin Bay, the ojoposite 
shores of which present ... an almost purely European 
flora on the east coast, but a large admixture of purely 
American species on the west." The portion of the 
whole belt richest in its diversity of vegetation is north- 
ern Scandinavia, or Lapland, which, though a small 
tract, has, according to Hooker, three fourths of the en- 
tire number of species and almost all the genera of this 
arctic area. He further remarks, indeed, that the 
Scandinavian flora not only girdles the globe above the 
arctic circle, and is predominant throughout the north 
temperate zone of the Old World, but also intrudes con- 
spicuously into every other temperate flora, whether in 
the northern or southern hemisphere or on the moun- 
tains of tropical countries. This migration has been 
most favoured in America, where the Andes-Cordilleran 
mountain belt has permitted a considerable number of 



202 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

arctic and northern plants to extend also to the highest 
southern latitudes, 

Greenland is especially cited by Hooker as having a 
flora closely identical, so far as it goes, with that of Lap- 
land, but the latter is far richer in species. All but 
eleven of the 207 species of flowering plants (67 mono- 
cotyledons and 140 dicotyledons) recorded in Greenland 
north of the arctic circle, and likewise nearly all the 
species of its more southern part, are also native in 
northern Europe. Of the eleven not found there, three 
are known elsewhere only in Asia, and the remainder are 
North American, chiefly restricted to Labrador or to 
mountains farther south. Fifty-seven arctic plants of 
Greenland are absent, so far as shown by collections, 
from the same latitudes in North America and in the 
archipelago west of Baffin Bay. The eastern portion 
of the arctic area of North America, however, has 
165 species which are not found in Greenland. The 
meridian of Davis Strait and Baffin Bay, therefore, 
appears to mark the limits of the migration of the 
Scandinavian flora outward both to the east, through 
northern Asia and North America, and to the west, 
by way of the Faroe Islands and Iceland, to Green- 
land. We can not doubt that the migrations took 
place upon continuous land areas, and that the con- 
trast on the opposite sides of Baffin Bay has been 
caused by the long existence of a barrier of water there 
nearly as now. 

How a land bridge was provided across the north 
Atlantic area and across the site of the present narrow 
and shallow Behring Strait will be considered in a later 
chapter; but we may here profitably notice, although 
briefly, the enforced migrations of arctic and boreal 
plants caused by the accumulation of ice sheets on the 



THE PLANTS OF GREENLAND. 203 

northern lands during the Glacial period. Hooker con- 
cludes that " the existing Scandinavian flora is of great 
antiquity, and that previous to the glacial epoch it was 
more uniformly distributed over the Polar Zone than it 
is now ; secondly, that during the advent of the glacial 
period the Scandinavian vegetation was driven south- 
ward in every longitude, and even across the tropics 
into the south temperate zone ; and that on the succeed- 
ing warmth of the present epoch, those species that sur- 
vived both ascended the mountains of the warmer zones 
and also returned northward, accompanied by aborigines 
of the countries they had invaded during their southern 
migration." 

This view is shown by Hooker and Gray to supply 
a satisfactory explanation of the almost complete iden- 
tity of the Greenland flora with that of Lapland ; its 
less number of species, and its poverty of forms not also 
found elsewhere ; xhe rarity of distinctively American 
species there ; the fewness of temperate plants in the 
somewhat temperate southern part of Greenland ; and 
the presence of a few of the rarest Greenland and Scan- 
dinavian species in very remote alpine localities of Xew 
England and the Rocky Mountain region. Dr. Hooker 
reasons thus : 

If it be granted that the polar area was once occupied by the 
Scandinavian flora, and that the cold of the glacial epoch did 
• drive this vegetation southwards, it is evident that the Greenland 
individuals, from being confined to a peninsula, would have been 
exposed to very different conditions from those of the great con- 
tinents. In Greenland many species would, as it were, be driven 
into the sea, that is, exterminated ; and the survivors would be 
confined to the southern portion of the peninsula, and, not being 
there brought into competition with other types, there could be 
no struggle for life amongst their progeny, and. consequently, no 
selection of better adapted varieties. On the return of heat, sur- 



204 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

vivors would simply travel northward, unaccompanied by the 
plants of any other country.* 

Iii the first volume of the final reports of the Geo- 
logical Survey of New Hampshire, Mr. William E. Flint 
and Dr. Nathan Barrows write of the arctic plants 
which occur on the summits of the White Mountains, 
but not elsewhere in that State and all the surround- 
ing region. Dr. Barrows enumerates 52 flowering 
plants which are found in New Hampshire only on 
the White Mountains, and 57 others which likewise 
occur on the mountain tops above the limits of trees, 
but have also a more extended range on the low- 
lands. Forty of the 52 strictly alpine species are 
indigenous in northern Europe, and most of these 
occur also in Greenland. They were driven southward 
when the ice sheet was accumulated on the northern 
half of North America, and on the return of a warm 
climate, when the ice was melted away, were able to 
survive in the temperate latitudes only by finding con- 
genial homes on the bleak, wind-swept, and cold moun- 
tain tops. The proportion (four fifths) of these moun- 
tain plants which are also European is far greater than 
for the whole flora of New England, in which only about 
one fifth part are also European species. f 

The flora of Greenland is poor in its number of 

* Outlines of the Distribution of Arctic Plants. Trans. Lin- 
na?an Society, London, vol. xxxii, 1861, pp. 251-348; reviewed 
by Prof. Asa Gray in the American Journal of Science, II, vol. 
xxxiv, pp. 144-148, July, 1862 (also in Scientific Papers of Asa 
Gray, 1889, vol. i. pp. 122-130). 

f Besides the Geology of New Hampshire, vol. i, 1874, chap- 
ters xiii and xvii. see an article by Prof. J. H. Huntington, The 
Flowering; Plants of the White Mountains, in Appalachia, vol. i, 
pp. 100-107, March, 1877. 



THE PLANTS OF GREENLAND. 205 

species in comparison with the arctic part of America, 
and more so as compared with Iceland and Lapland. 
Hooker gives a list of 230 American boreal and arctic 
plants, none of which occur in Greenland, but of which 
56 are found in Iceland, 57 in Europe, and 32 in the 
antarctic regions. Of the Iceland flora, 120 species 
are absent from Greenland, but 50 of these are found 
in northern Europe. Commenting on these remark- 
able features in the areal distribution of the circum- 
polar flora, Prof. Gray regards it as " most probable that 
the diffusion of species from the Old World to the 
New was eastward through Asia, for the arctic no less 
than (as has elsewhere been shown) for the temperate 
plants." 

Subsequent to the studies of Hooker and Gray fur- 
ther important investigations of the Greenland flora and 
its history have been made by two Scandinavian bota- 
nists, Lange and Warming. In 1880 Lange tabulated 
386 species of Greenland plants, of which he shows that 
15 are endemic, that is, restricted to Greenland ; that 
40 are distinctively western or American but absent from 
Europe ; and that 44 belong similarly to the eastern or 
European district, not occurring west of Baffin Bay. 
According to the researches of Warming, in 1889, 
Greenland may be divided, for classification of its flora, 
into two botanical provinces : a southern region charac- 
terized by the presence of the white birch, extending 
from Cape Farewell about two degrees, or 140 miles 
northward ; and a second, more decidedly arctic region, 
comprising all the rest of the country. The small south- 
ern district has about 60 species of plants which are not 
otherwise found in Greenland, and many of these are 
especially European types. The larger region, or far 
the greater part of Greenland, has hardly any such Eu- 



206 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

ropean plants, but a considerable number wliich are 
peculiarly American. A large majority, however, have 
a completely circumpolar range. 

It is well argued by Warming that the mountains of 
the western coast (7,000 feet high near the Umanak Fiord, 
at latitude 71°, and 5,000 to 7,000 feet high near the 
coast between latitude 62° and Cape Farewell, according 
to Steenstrup and Holm, while farther inland there they 
estimated the heights as probably 8,000 to 10,000 feet), 
which rise above the limits that were reached by the 
more extended glaciation during the Ice Age, and the 
high Payer and Petermann peaks (7,000 and 11,000 feet 
above the sea) near Franz Josef Fiord (latitude 73° 15') 
in eastern Greenland, would permit the j^reglacial flora 
to survive, at least partially, through the Glacial period, 
so that it would spread afterward over the present land 
borders. This view supplements that presented by 
Hooker in ascribing the preservation of the flora partly 
to nunatciks, as well as to southward and then northward 
migration on account of the formerly greater extent of 
the ice sheet. While many plants in these ways sur- 
vived the vicissitudes of the increased Pleistocene gla- 
ciation of Greenland, others succumbed, as the genera 
Chrysosplenium, Caltha, Oxytropis, Astragalus, Phaca, 
etc., which are so widely spread elsewhere in the arctic 
regions and in alpine districts of temperate latitudes.* 

* These notes of Lange and Warming are derived from Sir 
Henry H. Howorth's review in the Geological Magazine, III, vol. 
x, pp. 496-498, November, 1893. Howorth also adds that a simi- 
lar conclusion is also reached by Nathorst in regard to Spitzber- 
gen, whose present flora, instead of being clue to immigration 
since the Glacial period, is shown to be "the wreck and ruin of 
what was once a much richer flora, and which has been able to 
survive the drastic conditions which now prevail there." 



THE PLANTS OF GREENLAND. 207 

Immediately before the Glacial period the flora of 
all Greenland was probably more allied with Europe 
than with North America, and this flora, excepting the 
very hardy species which could exist on nunataks, ap- 
pears to have been largely preserved along the seashores. 
Greenland, like the northern half of North America, 
and like northern Europe, is known to have been much 
uplifted before the Ice Age, the high land elevation 
being doubtless the cause of the great accumulation of 
snow and ice. But then, as now, the Greenland ice 
sheet mainly lacked somewhat of reaching to the extreme 
shore line of the increased land area. Hence much of 
the preglacial flora which had spread westward from 
Scandinavia to the sea limit in Davis Strait and Baffin 
Bay escaped on the low coast (the most species being 
thus saved toward the south) and covered the open 
valleys again with verdure when the ice retreated. The 
broad glaciers, and even parts of the margin of the 
inland ice, extending quite to the sea in some places on 
both the east and west coasts, prevented the far northern 
migration of these plants ; and in northern Greenland, 
besides such as could live there through the Glacial 
period, others have undoubtedly since come in, across 
the comparatively narrow channels, from the arctic 
archipelago and the American mainland. 

More remotely, the lineage and history of the Green- 
land flora is revealed by the wonderfully abundant fossil 
plants which are found, with deposits of coal, in the 
rock strata of Disco Island and of contiguous and more 
northern islands and parts of the main western coasts 
between the latitudes of 69° and 73°. The plant-bear- 
ing beds are sandstone and shales, ranging in thickness 
up to 2,000 or 2,500 feet, and in age through the earlier, 
middle, and later parts of the Cretaceous period, to the 
15 



208 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

Miocene or middle period of the Tertiary era. Alter- 
nating with the upper beds, and covering them, are 
great outflows of columnar and amygdaloidal basalt, 
nearly horizontal, and varying in thickness up to 100 
feet. The date of these lava outflows was approxi- 
mately the same with similar or even grander vol- 
canic action in the Fiiroe Islands, Iceland, and the 
region of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon and 
Washington; and in Iceland and the northwestern 
United States the volcanism has continued to recent 
times. 

Prof. Lester F. Ward, reviewing the geographical 
distribution of fossil plants, in the Eighth Annual Re- 
port of the United States Geological Survey (for 1886- 
'87), summarizes the known fossil floras of Greenland, 
chiefly studied and figured by Heer, as follows : Car- 
boniferous species, 1 ; Cretaceous species, 335, of which 
88 belong to the Lower, 177 to the Middle, and 118 to 
the Upper Cretaceous, with 38 overlapping ; and Ter.- 
tiary species, 282,— giving a total of 618 fossil plants. 
The richest locality of the large Middle Cretaceous flora 
is Atanekerdluk (latitude 70°), the collections being ob- 
tained at the base of the high northeastern side of the 
Waigat passage, which separates Disco from the Nug- 
suak peninsula. Twelve hundred feet higher, directly up 
the same mountain side, are the richest Tertiary plant 
beds. For the Lower Cretaceous flora, one of the most 
productive localities is Kome (latitude 70° 37'), on the op- 
posite northern side of the mountainous Nugsuak penin- 
sula, whence Heer in 1871 described leaves of a poplar 
(Populus primceva), which, according to Ward, is "the 
most ancient dicotyledonous plant thus far published." 
About half of the Lower Cretaceous species are ferns, a 
quarter part are conifers, and a considerable number of 



THE PLANTS OF GREENLAND. 909 

the others are cycads, the one poplar being the only 
representative of our present predominant class of dicot- 
yledons. 

About two years after this review, extensive collec- 
tions of the flora of the Potomac formation in Virginia 
and Maryland were described by Prof. W. M. Fontaine.* 
This formation, which is regarded as of Lower Cretaceous 
age, being perhaps as old as the Kome beds in Green- 
land, is very remarkable in containing a considerable 
proportion of dicotyledonous plants, the total published 
Potomac flora being 3 species of horsetail (Equisetum) ; 
139 ferns ; 1-48 gymnospermous plants, mostly conifers ; 
and 75 dicotyledons. It still, however, seems not im- 
probable that the primeval poplar of Kome is the earli- 
est known forerunner of its great class. 

From undetermined regions where these broad-leaved 
flowering plants had become well developed during 
earlier geologic periods, they suddenly appear on the 
scene in the Middle and Upper Cretaceous epochs. In 
the Middle Cretaceous flora of Atane, Greenland, fully 
half of the species are dicotyledons, including trees of 
several still living genera, as the poplar, fig, sassafras, 
persimmon, tulip tree, magnolia, and sumach. The 
somewhat later Upper Cretaceous beds of Patoot, Green- 
land, comprise 21 cryptogamous plants, all but two of 
which are ferns ; 11 conifers, five of which belong to the 
genus Sequoia, a very widespread Cretaceous and Ter- 
tiary type, but now represented by only two living spe- 
cies, the redwoods or " big trees" of California ; 5 mono- 
cotyledons ; and 75 dicotyledons, or about five eighths 
of the whole number, including species of oak, walnut, 
plane tree or sycamore, laurel, cinnamon, aralia, dog- 

* United States Geological Survey, Monograph XV, 1889. 



210 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

wood, eucalyptus, ilex, buckthorn, cassia, and the other 
genera of this class previously noted. 

So late as the Miocene period, according to Heer's 
correlations with the Tertiary floras of Europe, or, ac- 
cording to Sir William Dawson, J. S. Gardner, and 
others, in the preceding Eocene period, the country 
which is now the bleak and treeless Disco Island and 
adjoining coast bore luxuriant forests chiefly composed 
of plane trees and sequoias. Nearly half of the fossil 
flora in Greenland referred by Heer to Miocene times 
consists of trees, including 30 species of conifers, 
besides many of our common deciduous broad-leaved 
genera, as beeches, oaks, walnuts, poplars, maples, lin- 
dens, magnolias, and the plentiful plane trees, of which 
last the stately sycamore, or buttonwood, in the eastern 
half of the United States is a lonely surviving species 
from the many of Tertiary times. 

Not only is such a rich forest flora found to have 
lived then within the arctic circle in Greenland, but 
other leaf-bearing Tertiary deposits, and even a bed of 
very good lignite coal 25 to 30 feet thick, were found 
in 1876 by Capt. H. W. Feilden, the naturalist of the 
English expedition commanded by Sir George Nares, 
at latitude 81° 45', on the northeastern coast of Grin- 
nell Land adjoining Eobeson Channel. Among the 
30 species of plants collected at that place and deter- 
mined by Heer are three species of pine ; two of spruce ; 
the bald cypress, very abundant, nearly like the same 
species now living in the swamps of our Southern 
States; two species each of poplar, birch, and hazel; an 
elm; a viburnum ; and a water lily. "There appear," 
Professor Heer writes, " in this most northern portion 
of the earth, for the most part, the same species with 
which we are already acquainted from Spitzbergen and 



THE PLANTS OF GREENLAND. 211 

Greenland ; and it is highly probable that the same flora 
extended up to the Pole, and that, supposing dry land 
to have existed there, this latter was clothed with the 
same forest of coniferous and leafy trees." * 

In Spitzbergen, Iceland, Greenland, and Grinnell 
Land, in British North America on the Mackenzie River 
at latitude 65° north, in Alaska, and in the New Siberia 
Islands, the fossil arctic Miocene flora, on which Heer 
did so much thorough study crowned with elaborate 
publication, has been found abundantly preserved. The 
latest accession to our knowledge of this flora was 
brought by Baron Toll, in 1886, from Thaddeus Island 
of the New Siberia or Lyakhoff group, where he discov- 
ered layers of Tertiary lignite and remains of Sequoia 
species. f Upon the arctic circle and much farther 
north, as known by the fossil plants in Grinnell Land, 
less than 600 miles from the pole, a temperate and even 
warm climate prevailed, nourishing forests in the now 
frigid zone on all sides of the pole during a geologic 
period not far preceding the Ice Age. 

More free circulation of ocean currents than now, 
carrying the warmth of tropical regions into the circum- 
polar area, was probably the cause of the warm Tertiary 
climate. Ensuing uplifts of northern lands, to be dis- 
cussed in another chapter, at length excluded the marine 
currents, and the increased land altitude, at least as 
great as the depth of the fiords, was attended with snow- 
fall, instead of rains, till the snow and ice accumulation 
culminated in the Glacial period. During Tertiary 
times, according to Professor Asa Gray, " Greenland, 

* Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, London, vol. 
xxxiv, 1878, pp. 66-70. 

f Nature, vol. xxxvii, p. 522, March 29, 1888. 



212 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

Spitzbergen, and our arctic seashore had the climate of 
Pennsylvania and Virginia now." Concerning the effect 
of glaciation to disperse the luxuriant circumpolar Ter- 
tiary flora and its descendants southward, Professor Gray 
further writes : 

Here, then, we have reached a fair answer to the question how 
the same or similar species of our trees came to be so dispersed 
over such widely separated continents. The lands all diverge 
from a polar centre, and their proximate portions — however differ- 
ent from their present configuration and extent, and however 
changed at different times — were once the home of those trees, 
where they flourished in a temperate climate. The cold period 
which followed, and which doubtless came on by very slow de- 
grees during ages of time, must have long before its culmination 
brought down to our latitude, with the similar climate, the forest 
they possess now, or rather the ancestors of it. . . . Wherefore 
the high, and not the low, latitudes must be assumed as the birth- 
place of our present flora, and the present arctic vegetation is best 
regarded as a derivative of the temperate. This flora, which 
when circumpolar was as nearly homogeneous round the high 
latitudes as the arctic vegetation is now, when slowly translated 
into lower latitudes would preserve its homogeneousness enough 
to account for the actual distribution of the same and similar spe- 
cies round the world, and for the original endowment of Europe 
with what we now call American types. It would also vary or be 
selected from by the increasing differentiation of climate in the di- 
vergent continents, and on their different sides, in a way which 
might well account for the present diversification.* 

Another botanist, Dr. Leo Lesquereux, after exten- 
sive studies of American and foreign fossil floras, simi- 
larly concludes that " the essential types of our actual 
flora are marked in the Cretaceous period, and have 
come to us after passing, without notable changes, 
through the Tertiary formations of our continent." 



THE PLANTS OF GREENLAND. 213 

During long geologic ages, up to the Glacial period, 
Greenland possessed a mild temperate climate, and its 
shores bore as richly diversified a flora of forest trees and 
herbaceous plants as the present Northern United States. 
With the oncoming of the Ice Age, which still lingers 
in this bleak, mountainous, far northern land, most of 
its preglacial plant species, including all its large forest 
trees, perished, having no land pathway for escape, as 
from other parts of the circumpolar region, to the still 
temperate and even hot tropical and equatorial lati- 
tudes. After the partial mitigation of the severity of 
glaciation, as it continues within somewhat diminished 
limits in Greenland to-day, the plants which had sur- 
vived on its low shores and on nunatak peaks again ex- 
tended their range over all its land borders. Above the 
rock strata of Kome, Atane, Patoot, and the many other 
localities where the Cretaceous and Tertiary ancestors of 
the forests of the north temperate zone are found repre- 
sented by their fossil leaves, the impoverished and 
dwarfed present Greenland flora blooms cheerily during 
its short summers, undaunted, and indeed made hardy 
and brave by its adversity, for patient endurance of its 
still glacial climate. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE ANIMALS OF GREENLAND. 

Naturalists have distinguished large regions of 
the earth which are characterized by peculiarities of 
their faunas and floras, certain species, genera, and 
orders, both of animals and plants, being limited in 
their geographic range so that they are plentiful in one 
region but absent or very scantily represented else- 
where. From such restrictions in zoological range, 
Sclater, in 1857, proposed six grand divisions of the 
earth's land areas. These great zoological regions, 
blending with each other on their boundaries, are now 
accepted by Wallace, Flower, and Lydekker, and many 
other writers on natural history ; and each region is sub- 
divided, on account of its climatic and topographic 
limitations of faunal and floral range, into smaller prov- 
inces. Sclater's divisions are : 1, The Palsearctic region, 
or the northern part of the Old World, comprising 
Europe, Iceland, Africa north of Sahara, and Asia north 
of the Himalayas ; 2, the Ethiopian region, comprising 
intertropical and southern Africa, southern Arabia, and 
Madagascar; 3, the Oriental region, comprising India 
and extending southeastward to Java, Borneo, and the 
Philippine Islands; 4, the Australian region, including 
Celebes, New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, and the 
islands of the Pacific Ocean ; 5, the Nearctic region, or 
north part of the New World, including Greenland and 

214 



THE ANIMALS OF GREENLAND. 215 

North America as far south as northern Mexico; and, 
6, the Neotropical region, embracing the remainder of 
the American continent and the West Indies. 

Other authors, as Heilprin and Packard, note so 
close relationship and community of species through all 
the far northern countries of both the Old and New 
Worlds, of which we have reviewed the botanical side 
in the foregoing pages, following Hooker and Gray, that 
they prefer to unite these northern areas of the Eastern 
and Western hemispheres as a single circumpolar zoo- 
logical and botanical region, which is named the Holarc- 
tic by Heilprin, from its reaching wholly around the 
earth in the arctic zone. 

From the geographic distribution of animals, not 
less than of plants, abundant evidence is found that in 
a late geologic time, probably comprising the closing 
stage of the Tertiary era and the early part of the 
Quaternary until the Ice Age, an extensive land area 
occupied the present place of Behring Strait and Sea, 
upon which the fauna and flora of the northern lands 
freely migrated from Europe and Asia to America, and 
the reverse, becoming nearly alike in these two great 
continental regions. Over all the circumpolar land ex- 
panse the mammoth, mastodon, and many other large 
animals roamed from the United States to Alaska, Si- 
beria, Continental Europe, and the British Isles during 
late Tertiary times. Near the end of the latest Tertiary 
period, or more probably well forward in the Quaternary 
era, almost to the epoch when the increasing uplift of 
northern countries brought on the Ice Age, men, hav- 
ing been created through evolution from the anthropoid 
apes, spread outward from their native tropical portion 
of the Old World to all parts of the great land areas of 
that hemisphere and to America. On account of the 



216 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

opportunity afforded in the circumpolar region, under 
its mild Tertiary and early Quaternary climate, for free 
intermigration of plants and animals, the present fauna 
of Greenland, like its flora, has close alliance or identity 
of many species with those of arctic Europe and 
Siberia. 

Because of the greater freedom of animals than of 
plants to extend their geographic range within recent 
times from the northern part of America and from the 
arctic archipelago to Greenland, they give less decisive 
evidence than the flora for the late Tertiary and pre- 
glacial union of Greenland with Iceland, the Faroe 
Islands, Britain, and Europe, while the Baffin Bay 
marine barrier prevented communication between Green- 
land and North America. As in the case of the plants, 
many species of the preglacial land fauna in Greenland 
probably survived on the shores and on the nunataks 
during the more extended glaciation, which appears to 
have been contemporaneous with the North American 
and European Ice Age. Since that time other species 
have doubtless come in, relatively in greater proportion 
than for the flora, from the contiguous lauds on the 
west. 

Only seven or eight species of land mammals are 
known to exist in Greenland in a native or wild condi- 
tion, to which the domestic cat and dog (perhaps to be 
considered the same species as the domesticated Eskimo 
dogs), goat, sheep, ox, hog, and house mouse, brought 
into the country by the Danes, are to be added for the 
total mammalian fauna. 

A single specimen of the arctic wolf, probably astray 
from the opposite western shore of Baffin Bay and 
Smith Sound, was shot in 1869. The whole number of 
Eskimo dogs in Greenland was estimated by Rink in 



THE ANIMALS OF GREENLAND. 217 

1877 to be about two thousand. He thinks them to 
have been derived, through domestication, from the 
nearly related arctic wolf ; and Peary, after much ex- 
perience in dog sledging across the inland ice, shares 
the same opinion. 

The most important fur-bearing land animal is the 
arctic fox (Canis lagqpus, genus Leucocyon, Gray), 
which is rather common, occurring in two varieties, 
called blue and white. They are hunted by the Eski- 
mos for selling their skins to the Danish traders. The 
price of the white is small, but that of the rarer blue 
variety, when in its best pelage, has several times risen 
to fifteen dollars in the European market. Flower and 
Lydekker describe this species as having " the tail very 
full and bushy, and the soles of the feet densely furred 
below. Its colour changes, according to season, from 
bluish gray to pure white." Dr. Rink says : 

The foxes appear mostly confined to the mainland, though 
they live, perhaps, for the most part upon what they may find on the 
shore at low water. In summer they often visit the islands, and 
may be met with, having made their holes and bred their young, 
in the immediate vicinity of abandoned winter houses, apparentlv 
attracted thither by the garbage left by the inhabitants. The 
half-grown cubs may then be seen playing outside like whelps of 
tame dogs, and may be approached and taken by the hand. They 
are always easily tamed, and behave in this state just like dogs. 
The skins are only in season from November to March, the hair 
being shorter and of a dirty grayish-brown colour during the 
other months. Many of the foxes are caught in traps of a very 
primitive construction, formed of a flat stone so fixed as to fall 
down and crush or confine them when the bait has been touched. 
But most of them are shot by hunters lying in wait when they 
come down to the shore in search of mussels or other food at low 
water. Of course, this sort of sport is limited to those southern 
places where the sea off the shore is mostly open even during the 
first part of the winter. There the foxes are by far the most nu- 



218 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

merous, but even in the farthest north they are not wanting. 
Wherever seals have been caught in winter upon the ice, foot- 
prints of some fox that has been attracted by the drops of blood 
in the snow will generally be visible ; but how these animals are 
able to find the food necessary for supporting life during eight 
months of the year at the northern fiords remains somewhat of a 
mystery. The sea being frozen over for hundreds of miles, the 
beach especially being covered by a crust of ice upwards of ten 
feet in thickness, and the birds having migrated to the south, the 
only other animals left to roam over the vast snow-covered tracts, 
besides reindeer, are hares, partridges, ravens, eagles, hawks, and 
owls. All these terrestrial animals are scarce, and seem to be un- 
able to yield sufficient food for the foxes. Severe winters with 
much snow are favourable to fox hunting, and such favourable 
years seem to have been often succeeded by periods in which the 
animals were unusually scarce. The number of foxes killed have 
been fifteen hundred yearly, on an average, from 1853 to 1872 ; the 
greatest number ever obtained seems to have been in 1874, when 
they amounted to five thousand. Of the whole stock, about one 
half is caught between 60° and 61° north latitude.* 

The white or polar bear ( Ursus maritimtis), called 
the " water bear " in Labrador (from its life on the floe 
ice and often swimming in the sea), has a comparatively 
small head, with small and narrow molar teeth, and the 
soles of its feet are more covered with hair than in other 
species of its genns. It is less ferocious than has been 
generally supposed, and Hayes affirms that it has 
" never been knowm to attack man except when hotly 
pursued and driven to close quarters." Packard shows 
that these bears lived in the time of Cabot and Cartier, 
nearly four hundred years ago, as far southward as New- 
foundland ; but their numbers and geographic range are 
now much diminished. Dr. Rink's notes of this most 
characteristic arctic mammal, as observed in Green- 
land, are as follow : 

* Danish Greenland, 1877, pp. 104, 105. 



THE ANIMALS OF GREENLAND. 219 

The polar bear is almost an amphibious animal. Upwards 
of fifty of them are, on an average, shot yearly, of which more 
than one half are shot in the environs of the northernmost settle- 
ment, and of the remainder the greater part at the southernmost 
extremity of the country, where they arrive with the drift ice 
around the Cape Farewell. Throughout the whole intervening 
tract bears are scarce, but still they may be found everywhere, 
and solitary stragglers may even be met with unexpectedly in 
summer in the interior of the fiords. Killing a bear has, in an- 
cient as well as in modem times, been considered one of the most- 
distinguishing feats of sportsmanship in Greenland. Erik the 
Red is said to have quarrelled with one of his best friends from 
envy on account of the latter having had the luck to capture a 
bear. ... In the north the bear is pursued upon the frozen sea 
by the aid of dogs. It often takes refuge on the top of an ice- 
berg, where it is surrounded and held at bay by the dogs until it 
is shot, generally not without some of the latter being lost on the 
occasion. In the north the male bears at least seem to roam about 
in winter as far south as 68° north latitude, because wherever the 
carcass of a whale may be found, or a rich hunt of seals or white 
whales occurs in a certain place within these confines, there sev- 
eral bears are sure soon to make their appearance. In the south, 
where no dogs are to be had for assistance, the natives generally 
try to force the bear into the water, and often kill it with harpoons 
from the kayak.* 

The ermine (Putorius ermineus), the Xorth Ameri- 
can lemming (My odes oiensis), and the musk ox (Ovi- 
bos moschatus), "are not found," according to Dr. 
Robert Brown, " as far south as the Danish possessions. 
They inhabit the shores of Smith Sound and East 
Greenland in about the same latitude, but do not 
stretch farther south, so that the probabilities are that 
they have migrated round the northern end of the 
country, and are kept from spreading southward by the 
glaciers." 



Op. tit., pp. 106, 10' 



220 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

Arctic hares (Lepus glacialis) are rather infrequent; 
no more than a thousand, according to Rink's estimate, 
being killed by the Eskimos yearly. 

Above all the other land animals in Greenland, as in 
all the arctic zone, the reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), 
extensively domesticated in northern Europe and Sibe- 
ria, is the most interesting and useful to man. Flower 
and Lydekker say of this species : 

The reindeer, or caribou, as it is termed in North America, is 
the sole representative of the genus Rangifer, which is sufficiently 
distinguished from all its allies by the presence of antlers in both 
sexes. . . . This animal is distributed over the northern parts of 
Europe, Asia, and America, the differences which may be ob- 
servable in specimens from different regions not being sufficient 
to allow of specific distinction. The reindeer is a heavily built 
animal, with short limbs, in which the lateral hoofs are well de- 
veloped, and the cleft between the two main hoofs is very deep, so 
that these hoofs spread out as the animal traverses the snow-clad 
regions in which it dwells. The antlers are of very large relative 
size. There is a bez as well as a brow tine, which are peculiar in 
being branched or palmated. In the American race (caribou), as 
well as in some of the specimens found fossil in the English 
Pleistocene, one of the . brow tines is generally aborted to allow of 
the great development of the other.* 

In Greenland the reindeer has a geographic range 
from Foulke Fiord (latitude 78° 18'), where they w T ere 
seen in small numbers by Hayes, and from the neigh- 
bouring northern shores of Inglefield Gulf, where Peary 
found considerable herds, southward along all the west 
coast to Cape Farewell. Eink gives the following 
description of reindeer hunting by the Eskimos in 
summer : 



* An Introduction to the Study of Mammals, Living and Ex- 
tinct, 1891, pp. 324, 325. 



THE ANIMALS OF GREENLAND. 221 

The chief hunting grounds, situated by the interior of the 
fiords, were the rendezvous places for hunters from widely 
spread wintering places. In their skin boats, escorted by kayaks, 
they carried their families, tents, and all their necessaries. From 
the fiords the boats occasionally were borne by land to the lakes, 
and in this way the farthest accessible interior regions were 
visited. . . . The chase gradually increased, chiefly on account of 
the more common use of the rifle. It reached its culminating 
point in the period between 1845 and 1849, when the number of 
deer killed might be rated at 25,000 annually, the number of skins 
exported being about 16,000 per annum. But after 1850 the chase 
rapidly declined, and in 1868 to 1872 the annual export had 
dwindled to 6 skins, or, in other words, nothing, while the whole 
number of animals killed may scarcely be rated at more than 
1,000 per annum during the latest period. On these longer ex- 
cursions the hunters are generally accompanied by women, whose 
duty is to carry home as much of the venison as possible, which 
they effect by passing the strap from which the load hangs 
around their foreheads. Notwithstanding the great skill they 
have acquired in carrying burdens in this way, their assistance 
proved insufficient during the briskest period of the chase. We 
may suppose that during those years one half of the flesh was 
abandoned on the rocks, while a great many deer were killed only 
for the sake of the hide and the tongue. . . . We have before us 
but an instance of a similar destruction of various kinds of game in 
almost every other part of the globe. Now, since the animals have 
ceased to congregate in so great herds, the pursuit of them never 
can be so ruinous, and it seems that during the last years the re- 
maining stock has not been subject to any further decrease. Rein- 
deer meat has, of course, ceased to be in daily use. but, on the 
other hand, it has as yet by no means become a rarity in Green- 
land. . . . The tallow is highly appreciated, and always eaten raw 
as a titbit. The antlers are almost indispensable for the manu- 
facture of several weapons and kayak implements. In the years 
following 1850 they were made an article of trade and purchased 
at a price of about one penny per pound, and the quantity of 
them dispersed over the country proved to be so great that at one 
station more than 100,000 pounds were brought for sale within a 
short period. Although hunting the reindeer was ordinarily a 
summer occupation, it also took place in winter, and in some 



222 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

localities reindeer were even shot close to the houses. Exception- 
ally the inhabitants of some places made the chase by land their 
chief source of sustenance, though not abandoning seal hunting, 
to which they had recourse for the purpose of providing oil for 
their lamps.* 

Far more valuable to the Greeulander for the means 
of subsistence in his frigid and barren, mountain-girt, 
and mostly ice-enveloped country, are the aquatic mam- 
mals known to naturalists as the pinnipeds and the 
cetaceans, the former comprising the walrus and seals, 
while the latter include whales, dolphins, and porpoises. 
Dr. Rink notes the uses of these animals by the Eski- 
mos, and their methods of capture, as follows : 

These two different orders of mammalia . . . are caught in 
much the same manner, and . . . both their flesh and blubber 
supply the Greenlanders with their most nutritious food, and 
with the necessary means for heating and lighting their houses. 
But as regards their skins, there is an important difference, the 
seals affording material for clothes, boats, and tents, while the 
skin of the whales only yields a favourite nutriment. This edible 
skin is called Matak, and all the cetaceous animals are for this 
reason denominated Mataliks. It is almost always eaten raw, and 
consists of two sheets, the inner one very tough, while the outer, 
which is considered to represent the rudimental hair covering, is 
more brittle. There are as many varieties of it as there exist 
species of cetaceans, from that of the small porpoise to the colossal 
whale. 

The principle upon which the peculiar seal hunting of the 
Eskimo is based is almost the same as that which.has been resorted 
to in the ordinary European mode of killing whales— viz., previ- 
ously striking the animal with the harpoon, and keeping hold of 
and wearying it by aid of a line attached to the harpoon, so as to 
facilitate the killing of it by means of the lance and spear. The 
use of the harpoons, lines, and lances is perfectly analogous among 
the European and the Eskimo hunting at sea. The chief differ- 

* Op. cit, pp. 101-104. 



THE ANIMALS OF GREENLAND. 



223 



ence in their proceedings appears to be the mode of retarding the 
animal while running off with the harpoon and lines. 

The Greenlander manages this by throwing out an inflated 
bladder attached to the other end of the line ; but the European 
whaler still keeps this end of the line in the boat of the harpooner, 




Fig. 47. —Kayak, with inflated bladder and other implements of chase. 

only letting go so much of the line as is necessary to prevent 
the boat from being capsized and drawn down, while the terri- 
fied animal, being still in possession of its whole power, runs 
off with extraordinary quickness. The seal, or whale, having 
become sufficiently exhausted by dragging [the bladder or] 
the boat, the mortal wounds are finally inflicted by help of the 
lance.* 



16 



Op. cit., pp. Ill, 112. 



224 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

First in size and in uniqueness of specific characters 
among the pinnipeds is the walrus (Odobcenus ros- 
?narus, genus Trichecus of Gray and most writers dur- 
ing the past century), also called the morse, from its 
Eussian and Lapp name, or the sea cow or sea horse. 
Its length is ten to twelve feet, and its weight two thou- 
sand to three thousand pounds. From the first discov- 
ery of the Atlantic shores of North America up to about 
a hundred years ago immense herds of walruses or " sea 
oxen " (assembling " to the amount of seven or eight 
thousand ") lived about Sable Island, off the coast of 
Nova Scotia, on the Magdalen Islands and Anticosti in 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and around Newfoundland. 
A thousand years ago the walrus was abundant on the 
coasts of Finmark, the most northern part of Norway. 
Kelentless slaughter for its oil, hide, and tusks, has since 
restricted the limits of this species in the Western Hemi- 
sphere to Labrador and the coasts of Hudson and Davis 
Straits, Baffin Bay, and adjoining waters, and in the Old 
World to " the islands and the icy seas to the northward 
of eastern Europe and the neighbouring portions of 
western Asia, where it rarely, if ever, now visits the 
shores of the Continent."* A closely similar species, 
the only other of the genus, inhabits the region of 
Behring Sea and Strait and the contiguous shores of the 
Arctic Ocean. 

In Greenland, according to Dr. Eobert Brown, the 
walrus " is found all the year round, but not south of 
Rifkol, in latitude Go . In an inlet called Irsortok it 
collects in considerable numbers, to the terror of the 
natives who have to pass that way. ... It has been 

* J. A. Allen, History of North American Pinnipeds, 1880, 
p. 79. 



THE ANIMALS OF GREENLAND. 225 

found as far north as the Eskimos live or explorers have 
gone. ... It is not now found in such numbers as it 
once was, and no reasonable man who sees the slaugh- 
ter to which it is subject in Spitzbergen and else- 
where can doubt that its days are numbered. It has 
already become extinct in several places where it was 
once common. Its utter extinction is a foregone con- 
clusion." * 

Kink says : " The walrus is only rarely met with 
along the coast, with the exception of the tracts between 
66° and 68° north latitude, where it occurs pretty nu- 
merously at times. The daring task of entering into 
contest with this animal from the kayak on the open sea 
forms a regular sport to the natives of Kangamiut in 66° 
north latitude. The number yearly killed has not been 
separately calculated on account of the skin being gener- 
ally eaten along with the meat, and considered a very 
delicate dish ; but they can hardly exceed two hun- 
dred." f 

Considerable herds of the walrus were found by 
Kane, Hayes, and Peary in the region of Smith Sound 
and Inglefielcl Gulf, and they describe very exciting 
encounters with these powerful animals, when, some of 
their number being wounded or killed, they sought to 
avenge their losses by concerted attacks on their perse- 
cutors. 

The chief food of this huge animal consists of bi- 
valved molluscs, notably Mya truncata and Saxicava 
rugosa, which are dug out from their beds in the mud 
and sand of the sea bottom by means of the animal's 
tusks. " It crushes and removes the shells by the aid of 



* Proceedings of the Zoological Society, London, 1868, p. 433. 
f Op. cit., pp. 126, 127. 



226 



GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 



its grinding teeth and tongue, swallowing only the soft 
part. ... It also feeds on other molluscs, sandworms, 
starfishes, and shrimps." 

Among the five or six species of seals of Greenland, 
the most abundant and important to the natives as a 




'ig. 48.— Women dressing a ringed seal just brought in by a kayaker. 



source of food is the Phoca fcetida, or ringed seal, of 
naturalists, called the fiord seal by Fabricius, the natsek 
of the Eskimos, and the " floe rat " of English whalers. 
Its length is four to six feet, and its weight ranges from 
seventy-five to two hundred pounds or more. Allen 
says of this species : 



THE ANIMALS OF GREENLAND. 227 

The ringed seal is pre-eminently boreal, its home being al- 
most exclusively the icy seas of the arctic regions. Its favourite 
resorts are said to be retired bays and fiords, in which it remains 
so long as they are filled with firm ice ; when this breaks up they 
betake themselves to the floes, where they bring forth their young. 
It is essentially a littoral, or rather glacial species, being seldom 
met with in the open sea.* 

Its geographic range extends south to Labrador, and 
in Europe to the Orkneys, the Hebrides, and the Gulfs 
of Bothnia and Finland. Eastward it ranges along: the 
coasts of Siberia and Alaska, and extends south into 
Behring Sea. It is said to occur also in the wholly 
fresh water of Lake Ladoga in Russia ; and near allies 
of this species live in the Caspian Sea, and in the fresh 
Lake Baikal, 1,360 feet above the level of the ocean. 

Dr. Rink estimates the number of these seals cap- 
tured yearly in Greenland to be about 51,000. He re- 
marks on its habits and the origin of its specific name : 

Stray individuals of this species migrate to the main drift ice 
of Baffin Bay in July, and return to the coast when the first bay 
ice is forming in September, or occasionally appearing whenever 
the weather has been stormy. But the chief stock, whose 
favourite haunts, as has been described, are the ice fiords, does 
not seem to leave the coast at all. It is almost exclusively this 
seal that is captured as " utok " and by means of the ice nets. It 
derives its scientific name from the nauseous smell peculiar to 
certain older individuals, especially those captured in the interior 
ice fiords, which are also on an average perhaps twice as large as 
those generally occurring -off the outer shores. When brought 
into a hut and cut up on its floor, such a seal emits a smell 
resembling something between that of asafoetida and onions, 
almost insupportable to strangers. This peculiarity is not notice- 
able in the younger specimens or those of a smaller size, such as 
are more generally caught, and at all events the smell does not 
detract from the utility of the flesh over the whole of Greenland.! 

* Op. cif., p. G19. f Op. cit, p. 123. 



228 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

Quite inferior in its value to the Greenland Eskimos 
is the PJwca vitulina, or harbour seal, called in Green- 
land the kassigiak, or " spotted seal," and known com- 
monly in Norway as the " fiord seal." Its length is 
nearly like the preceding, and its average weight is from 
sixty to one hundred pounds. Southward its geographic 
range extends to New Jersey, and stray specimens have 
been captured on the coast of North Carolina. On the 
European coasts it reaches south to the British Isles, 
Spain, and even the Mediterranean, and "along the 
Scandinavian peninsula is the commonest species of the 
family." Thence it extends along the northern shores 
of Europe and Asia, through Behring Strait, and south- 
ward to Japan and to the Santa Barbara Islands, off the 
coast of southern California. It also ascends the larger 
rivers of these coasts, often to a considerable distance 
above tide water, having been taken rarely in Lakes 
Champlain and Ontario. It is the only species of seal 
inhabiting any part of the eastern United States. Allen 
writes : 

On the New England coast, as elsewhere, it is chiefly observed 
about rocky islands and shores, at the mouths of rivers, and in 
sheltered bays, where it is always an object of interest. Although 
ranging far into the arctic regions, it is everywhere said to be a 
sedentary or non-migratory species, being resident throughout 
the year at all points of its extended habitat. Unlike most of the 
other species, it is strictly confined to the shores, never resorting 
to the ice floes, and is consequently never met with far out at sea, 
nor does it habitually associate with other species.* 

Dr. Rink states that this species is " much less nu- 
merous in Greenland than the natsek. It occurs here 
and there, however, throughout the coast, and seems to 
be as stationary as the former, with which it also corre- 

* Page 589. 



THE ANIMALS OF GREENLAND. 229 

sponds in size. The skin is highly valued in Greenland 
for making clothes. The annual catch is doubtful ; it 
may be guessed at a thousand, and at any rate scarcely 
amounts to two thousand."* 

Next after the ringed seal, the most abundant and 
valuable species for the Eskimos is the PJwca grcen- 
landica, or harp seal, commonly called the " saddle- 
back " by English-speaking whalers and the svartside 
by the Danes, but known to the Norwegians and Swedes 
as the Greenland seal. This gregarious and migratory 
species grows to be five or six feet long, with weight vary- 
ing from three hundred to seven hundred pounds, of 
which the skin and blubber constitute about a third part. 
Allen writes of its geographic range and migrations : 

Although the harp seal has a circurapolar distribution, it ap- 
pears not to advance so far northward as the ringed seal or the 
bearded seal ; yet the icy seas of the North are pre-eminently its 
home. It is not found on the Atlantic coast of North America in 
any numbers south of Newfoundland. A few are taken at the 
Magdalen Islands, and while on their way to the Grand Banks 
some must pass very near the Nova Scotia coast. . . . The harp 
seals are well known to be periodically exceedingly abundant 
along the shores of Newfoundland, where during spring hundreds 
of thousands are annually killed. In their migrations they pass 
along the coast of Labrador, and appear with regularity twice a 
year off the coast of southern Greenland. . . . The saddleback, 
although found at one season or another throughout a wide ex- 
tent of the arctic seas, appears to be nowhere resident the whole 
year. Its very extended periodical migrations relate apparently 
to the selection of suitable conditions for the production of its 
young, and occur with great regularity. Where it spends por- 
tions of the year is not well known, while, on the other hand, it 
may be found with the utmost certainty at particular localities 
during the breeding season. Its most noted breeding stations are 

* Pages 123, 124. 



230 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

the ice floes to the eastward of Newfoundland and in the vicinity 
of Jan Mayen, at which localities they appear early in spring in 
immense herds.* 

Notes of the harp seal, as observed in Greenland by 
Dr. Rink, are as follows : 

This species, which is well known as forming the chief object 
of chase to the European sealing ships in the Spitzbergen and New- 
foundland seas, is a migratory animal, but must nevertheless be 
considered at home on the Greenland coast, on account of its 
haunting its shores and roaming over its sounds and fiords regu- 
larly during the greater part of the year. It is of inestimable im- 
portance on account of its skin, which yields the usual covering 
of the kayaks and open skin boats. It appears regularly along 
the southern part of the coast in September, travelling in herds 
from south to north between the islands, and at times resorting to 
the fiords. They are then pretty fat, but their sheet of blubber 
is still increased during the course of winter. In October and 
November the catch is most plentiful ; then it decreases in De- 
cember, grows more scarce in January, and becomes almost ex- 
tinct in February. The seals return as regularly off the southern 
coast in May, and on the more northern in June. They have then 
grown very lean and lost more than half their blubber. Having 
visited the fiords in numerous herds, they again disappear in July 
and return in September. Consequently this seal deserts the coast 
twice a year, and as regularly returns to it in due season, always 
first making its appearance in the southern and somewhat later in 
the northern regions. . . . The " saddlebacks.'' according to their 
age or different stages of development, are divided into four or five 
different classes by the European sealers, as well as by the natives 
of Greenland. In Greenland, however, in familiar language, the 
only distinction made is between the full-grown animal, whose 
skin has assumed the half-moon-shaped dark marking on both 
sides of the body, and the half-grown ones, or " blue-sides," on 
whom these bands are as yet not sufficiently developed. . . . The 
annual catch is calculated at 17,500 full-grown saddlebacks and 
15,500 blue-sides. f 

* Pages 640-642. f Pages 124-126. 



THE ANIMALS OF GREENLAND. 231 

It seems very doubtful whether the gray seal (Hali- 
clmrus grypns) has ever been found on the western 
coast of Greenland, but it is probably frequent on the 
east coast. It ranges from Nova Scotia, Labrador, and 
the British Isles northward to Iceland, and to Tromso 
in Norway, but is absent from the islands of the Arctic 
Ocean. 

The bearded seal (Erignaihus barbatus), called the 
ugsuk or " thong seal " in Greenland, is, after the wal- 
rus, the largest species of our North Atlantic pinnipeds. 
Its length is stated by Rink as ten feet, and he notes 
that it " occurs only in few numbers, and chiefly at the 
northern and southern extremities of the coast, but is 
of the utmost importance, its big skin being the only 
one considered fit for making the hunting lines of the 
kayakers, whose life depends on the line running out 
easily without being liable to the slightest entanglement 
when pulled by the harpooned seal. The annual catch 
hardly amounts to a thousand." Allen says of its 
range : " The present species is circumpolar and ex- 
tremely boreal in its distribution, and appears to be 
migratory only as it is forced southward in winter by 
the extension of the unbroken icefields." 

The only other species of seal frequenting the shores 
of Greenland is the " bladder-nose," or hooded seal 
(Cystophora cristata), "well known from the bladder 
on its forehead, which it is able to blow up at will." 
Its length is six to eight feet, with weight of four hun- 
dred to nine hundred pounds, the skin and fat being 
nearly half. Allen says of this species : " The hooded 
or crested seal is restricted to the colder parts of the 
North Atlantic and to portions of the Arctic Sea, It 
ranges from Greenland eastward to Spitzbergen and 
along the arctic coast of Europe, but is rarely found 



232 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

south of southern Norway and Newfoundland. . . . Like 
the harp seal, it appears also to be regularly migratory, 
but, owing to its much smaller numbers and less com- 
mercial importance, its movements are not so well 
known." 

Nansen describes the ruthless slaughter of this spe- 
cies on the floe ice between Iceland and Greenland as 
follows : 

The capture of the bladder-nose in Denmark Strait is not an 
industry of very long standing. It was inaugurated by the Nor- 
wegians in 1876, and their example was followed by a few English 
and American vessels. For the first eight years the venture was 
an unprecedented success : the seals were more than plentiful, 
and were shot down in thousands. During this period something 
like five hundred thousand head were captured, and it is probable 
that quite as many were killed and lost. After these years of 
plenty came a change, and ever since the pursuit has been practi- 
cally a failure, all the vessels alike being equally unsuccessful.* 

In 1888, however, Nansen saw again vast numbers 
of these seals on the inner and firm areas of the floe ice 
in the same region, where, he thinks, they had learned 
to stay as less exposed to their human enemies, instead 
of living as formerly on the outer and loose floes, where 
they better escaped the ravages of polar bears. 

Notes of the hooded seal on the western coast of 
Greenland, by Rink, are as follows : 

It is only occasionally found along the greater part of the 
coast, but visits the very limited tract between 60° and 61° north 
latitude in great numbers, most probably coming from and re- 
turning to the east side of Greenland. The first time it visits us 
is from about May 20 till the end of June, during which it yields 
a very lucrative catch. It is very fierce, and when wounded not 
unfrequently attacks its pursuer, violently splashing, and trying 

* The First Crossing of Greenland, 1890, vol. i, p. 182. 



THE ANIMALS OF GREENLAND. 233 

to bite him. This hunt, which is hazardous to a man in a frail 
kayak, has been greatly facilitated by the rifle, the hunters first 
hitting their prey from the ice floes, and afterwards despatching 
it with their harpoon from the kayak. A bladder-nose yields 
about one hundred and twenty pounds of blubber and two hun- 
dred pounds of flesh. The annual catch is about three thousand 
on an average.* 

Sixteen species of cetaceans are enumerated by Dr. 
Robert Brown as known to occur in the waters of west- 
ern Greenland. The most valuable of these to the 
Eskimos is the white whale {Beluga catodon, or Del- 
phinapterus leucas), which, according to Dr. Rink, 
swims along the coast " chiefly in spring, as soon as the 
bay ice breaks up, and in autumn before the new ice 
forms. It measures twelve to sixteen feet in length, 
and yields about four hundred pounds of blubber and 
an equal or greater amount of eatable parts. The num- 
ber yearly killed may be estimated at more than six 
hundred." The geographic range of this small whale 
extends south to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, from which 
it ascends the River St. Lawrence for a considerable dis- 
tance. During the Champlain epoch or closing part 
of the Glacial period, when the sea extended inland to 
the basin of Lake Champlain as soon as it was uncov- 
ered from the waning ice sheet, this species ranged 
along the then enlarged Gulf of St. Lawrence to Ver- 
mont, where a nearly complete skeleton of it was found 
in 1849, embedded in the Champlain marine clays, sixty 
feet above the lake, and nearly one hundred and sixty 
feet above the present sea-level. At several localities in 
Canada, also, along the St. Lawrence Valley, the bones 
of this species have been found in the Champlain clays, 
up to heights exceeding two hundred feet above the sea. 

* Op. cit, p. 126. 



234 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

Second in value to the Greenlanders is the narwhal 
or " sea unicorn " (Monodon monoceros), so named from 
the long and straight, spirally grooved, single tusk or 
" horn " of the male, which often attains a length of 
seven or eight feet. It is " essentially an arctic animal, 
frequenting the icy circnmpolar seas, and but rarely 
seen south of 65° north latitude." Rink tells us that it 
is much scarcer than the white whale, and is " almost 
only caught at the northernmost settlements, especially 
in Umanak Bay. It follows immediately after the white 
whale, and is chased from the kayak in November, when 
the surface of the sea every moment threatens to be 
rapidly congealed in calm weather to the utmost dan- 
ger of the hunters. The annual catch probably does 
not surpass a hundred." 

The large species of whales are now less frequently 
captured by the Eskimos than formerly, the present 
average number taken yearly being no more than two 
or three. These colossal marine mammals, the chief ob- 
jects of pursuit by the European and American whalers, 
include the Greenland or arctic right whale (Balcena 
mysticetns), forty-five to fifty feet long ; three species 
of rorquals, " finners," or " razorbacks," as they are va- 
riously called, namely, the " blue whale " (Balcenoptera 
siblaldi), "the largest of all known animals," having a 
length of about eighty feet, and two others of this genus, 
commonly called the " big tinner " and the " little tin- 
ner "; the humpback whale {Megaptera longimana or 
Megaptera hoops), about fifty feet long ; and the sperm 
whale {Phijseter macrocephalus), very rare in Baffin Bay, 
of which the male grows to be sixty feet long, while the 
female is only about half as large. The sperm whale 
is mainly a tropical species ; but the " humpback " is 
chiefly limited to far northern latitudes, as from Nor- 



THE ANIMALS OF GREENLAND. 235 

way to Baffin Bay. During the closing stage of the Ice 
Age, however, the humpback whale is known to have 
lived in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, for portions of a 
skeleton of this species, as reported by Sir William Daw- 
son, were found in 1882 in the gravel and sand of a bal- 
last pit on the Canadian Pacific Eailway, three miles 
north of Smith's Falls, in Ontario, and thirty miles 
north of the River St. Lawrence. This locality is four 
hundred and forty feet above the sea, having nearly the 
same height as one of the principal Late Glacial or 
Champlain marine shore lines on the Montreal Moun- 
tain and in other parts of the St. Lawrence Valley.* 
Even at the present time this species is occasionally 
seen in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and, according to 
Dawson, " is more disposed than the other large whales 
to extend its excursions some distance into the es- 
tuary." 

Among the other and comparatively small cetaceans 
of Greenland, besides the right whale and narwhal be- 
fore noticed, are the bottle-nose whale (Hyperoodon 
rostratus) ; the pilot whale or Grindhval of the Faroe 
Islands (Globicephalus melas) ; the common porpoise 
(Phocmia communis), of which a few are usually ob- 
tained by the Eskimo hunters yearly; two or three 
others of the dolphin family, observed still more rarely ; 
and the grampus or "killer " (Orca gladiator), " readily 
known, when swimming in the water, by the high, erect, 
falcate dorsal fin, whence their common German name 
of Schwertfisch (swordnsh). . . . They are distinguished 
from all their allies by their great strength and ferocity, 
being the only cetaceans which habitually prey on warm- 
blooded animals, for, though fish form part of their food, 

* J. W. Dawson, The Canadian Ice Age, 1893, p. 268. 



236 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

they also attack and devour seals and various species of 
their own order, not only the smaller porpoises and dol- 
phins, but even full-sized whales, which last they com- 
bine in packs to hunt down and destroy, as wolves do 
the larger ruminants." * 

Long lists of the fauna of Greenland, in its other 
great classes, are given by the Manual of the Natural 
History, Geology, and Physics of Greenland and Neigh- 
bouring Regions, prepared in 1875, under the editorship 
of Prof. T. Rupert Jones, for the use of the British 
Arctic Expedition in 1875-'76, commanded by Sir 
George Nares ; and these lists, with additions, are also 
given in an appendix of Dr. Henry Eink's Danish 
Greenland, as edited in English by Dr. Robert Brown 
in 1877. 

The Greenland avifauna, according to the list by 
Reinhardt, thus published, comprises 124 species, of 
which 51 species are very rare, or occur only as strag- 
glers far from their ordinary geographic range. Among 
the rare or astray species which are familiar summer 
birds in the eastern United States, are the golden- 
winged woodpecker or nicker, several flycatchers and 
warblers, and even the robin. In the grouse family, 
the rock ptarmigan (Lagopus rupestris), highly es- 
teemed for food, is stated by Rink to be " pretty com- 
mon, being in summer almost everywhere met with at 
heights of from one thousand to two thousand feet, 
while in winter flocks of them are sometimes seen close 
to the houses. Very few are caught by snares, almost 
the whole of them being shot with fowling pieces, and 
mostly by persons who are engaged and provided by the 

* Flower and Lydekker, Introduction to the Study of Mam- 
mals, 1891, pp. 267, 268. 



THE ANIMALS OF GREENLAND. 237 

Europeans with the necessary implements for taking 
them. The whole annual production of ptarmigan 
may be rated at about 12,000 on an average." Con- 
cerning the raven (Corvus corax), nearly cosmopolitan 
in range, but rare or absent throughout the eastern half 
of the United States, Kink says : " The ravens are as- 
siduous guests in every settlement when the country is 
covered with deep snow, and when even berries, which 
otherwise seem to constitute part of their food, are dif- 
ficult to be got. They then become almost tame, and 
follow people carrying seal flesh or blubber in order to 
snatch the snow that may have imbibed some dropping 
blood or oil. Their flesh is eaten by few persons, and it 
is generally not considered worth while to shoot them." 
Of the sea fowl, which are especially useful to the 
Eskimos for food and clothing, Dr. Eiuk writes : 

In summer, swarms of sea fowl are scattered over the whole 
extent of the coast. It is well known that for the purpose of es- 
caping their enemies some of them, especially the eider ducks, breed 
in small and low outer islands, while others inhabit precipitous 
rocks, the so-called bird cliffs. The breeding places of the eider 
ducks are limited to certain clusters of islets, which are regularly 
visited by the natives in June and July in search of eggs and 
down. The eggs, even when containing little chickens, are not at 
all offensive to their heroic taste. The same recklessness with 
which the natives now waste these eggs has no doubt been shown 
by them in ancient times ; for this reason it is rather surprising 
that a more constant decrease in the production of down does not 
appear to have set in before the last twenty years, the average 
quantity exported having diminished from fifty-six hundred to 
two thousand pounds [of raw eider down] yearly during this pe- 
riod. The only probable reason may be found in a more general 
persecution of the bird itself having of late been added to the 
devastations of the nests. 

Compared with eider ducks, the sea fowl which inhabit the 
cliffs are much less subject to have their nests and eggs taken. 



238 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

These precipitous walls rising abruptly from the sea to a height 
of one thousand or two thousand feet, or even more, with all their 
protruding edges and their holes and fissures crowded with birds, 
offer a curious sight on account of the immense number of their 
eathered inhabitants, and the enormous size of the beetling rocks 
when regarded from a boat a few hundred feet distant from the 
shore. The appearance of such rocks is generally illusive to the 
eye by appearing nearer and lower than they really are, for which 
reason the size of the birds at the same time will appear too small. 
On seeing the innumerable white patches with which the gloomy 
walls are dotted over, we are reminded of snow, while some single 
birds which happen to be soaring in the air present the appearance 
of down or feathers borne by the wind. But on firing a gun, or on 
some other sign being given, the white spots begin to move ; in a 
moment thousands of birds swarm over one's head, filling the air 
with their discordant cries, and the beholder then first receives a 
correct impression of the true size and height of the wall inhab- 
ited by them. Some of the bird cliffs, and especially those of the 
farthest north, contain different species of sea fowls ranged over 
one another, the auks occupying the lowest part, the kittiwakes 
being the chief inhabitants of the centre, and the gulls inhabiting 
the most inaccessible heights. The Greenlanders know nothing 
about those peculiar contrivances made use of in other countries 
to get at the nests ; they merely step from their skiff upon the 
rock and climb wherever they are able to find the least foot- 
ing . . . 

In winter all the sea fowls migrate to the south, where open 
water may be found, and there, south of 66° north latitude, they 
afford profitable hunting to the natives during a season when some- 
times they have nothing else but fish for food ; the feathers furnish 
them with an article of trade, and the skins, with the feathers or 
down still adhering to them, form excellent clothing, being at the 
same time light and warm. Some of them, distinguished for their 
colour and softness, even yield a valuable fur for the European 
market in the shape of coverlets or of articles for ladies' dress. 
By far the greater part of these birds consist of auks and eider 
ducks, and although a great many of them are now shot, they are 
still chiefly taken from the kayaks by means of the bird spear. 
Sea-fowl jackets are, on account of their lightness, much used by 
the kayakers. The whole amount of sea fowls annually killed 



THE ANIMALS OF GREENLAND. 239 

may be rated at twenty thousand eider ducks and other larger 
kinds and more than fifty thousand auks and other smaller kinds. 
The eggs yearly taken, chiefly those of eider ducks, may be esti- 
mated at more than three hundred thousand. 

The great auk (Alca impmnis), formerly inhabiting 
the northeastern coasts of our continent from Massachu- 
setts northward, also Greenland, Iceland, and the north- 
western shores of Europe, has probably now become 
everywhere extinct, being last known in Iceland in 1844, 
and a solitary specimen in Labrador in 1870. Unable 
to fly, these large birds fell an easy prey to man's hun- 
ger, and their gradual extermination w T as well advanced 
on our northeastern coast before the coming of Euro- 
pean colonists, as is shown by the plentiful bones of the 
great auk in the aboriginal shell mounds. 

Lutken's catalogue of the fishes of Greenland in- 
cludes 79 species. Xotes. by Dr. Rink, on the species 
most valuable for food, are as follows : 

Sharks (Somriiosus microcephalics) are found roaming about 
everywhere, and will soon appear wherever a large carcass is 
found or a plentiful capture of seals happens to take place. 
Those that are caught vary in length from six to sixteen feet, and 
the liver, forming as yet almost the only part retained for use, 
weighs between twenty and sixty pounds, in rare instances even 
several times more. This monstrous fish appears almost as indo- 
lent and torpid as it is voracious. Curious instances are related 
of the greediness and regardlessness of danger exhibited by them 
when crowding round the carcass of a whale, from which they are 
not to be scared away even by being severely wounded and muti- 
lated. . , . Several modes of fishing them from open boats and by 
different sorts of hooks and lines have been attempted, but none 
of them have proved more effectual than the fishery through holes 
in the ice. This has been done not only with lines or chains, but 
also by drawing them to the hole merely by means of torchlight, 
and then taking them with sharp hand hooks, two men being re- 
quired to haul each of the larger fish up on the ice. 
17 



21-0 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

The catch being first successfully commenced in a certain spot, 
sharks will soon be attracted, and it may be continued in the 
same place for a great part of the winter. The huge carcasses 
spreading over the ice then accumulate to several hundreds ; at 
some stations, in favourable seasons, even thousands have covered 
the ice, attracting ravens, foxes, and especially dogs. But to the 
latter this frozen shark's flesh has proved obviously unwholesome 
when swallowed in large quantities and forming their only food 
for any length of time. It renders them sluggish and torpid and 
subject to fits of giddiness ; on having pulled the sledge a short 
distance, their ears begin to droop, they tumble from one side to 
the other, and finally fall into convulsions, and can not be com- 
pelled to stir from the spot. The contagious disease [called pib- 
lockto, by which Hayes and Peary lost the greater part of large 
teams of sledge dogs] . . . bears a great similarity to this com- 
plaint, and as it commenced a few years after the shark fishery 
had gained its highest pitch, there may be some reason for believ- 
ing that this disease might have originated from the same source. 
The bones, being merely cartilage, are considered good eating by 
the natives, especially after having been kept for a certain time; 
a little of the flesh is cut into slices and dried, but by far the 
greater part of the carcasses is thrown away. The flesh has, 
however, proved to be very rich in oil, and there seems no doubt 
that its unwholesome qualities merely appertain to it in a raw and 
particularly in a frozen state. A shark of middle size, weighing 
about three hundred pounds, contains about one hundred pounds 
of pure flesh. The number annually captured varies from ten 
thousand to twenty thousand. 

The codfish of Davis Strait [and also of the Canadian and 
New England fishing banks, as well as of Europe] (Gadus mor- 
rhua) does not spawn on the shores of Greenland. Spawners are 
only very rarely caught, and during the winter the cod is wholly 
absent. Sometimes in spring a great many quite young ones ar- 
rive at the inlets between 60° and 61° north latitude, which would 
seem to suggest that their breeding places were not far off ; but 
they generally make their appearance after June 20th on the fish- 
ing grounds, which are situated between 64° and 68° north lati- 
tude, at a distance of sixteen miles from the shore, and in July 
and August resort to the inlets up to about 70° north latitude. 
With regard to number, the occurrence of codfish on the Green- 



THE ANIMALS OF GREENLAND. 2il 

land shores is peculiarly variable. Some years, or certain periods 
of few years, may prove extremely favourable as regards the 
catch, whereas others turn out a total failure. The number annu- 
ally caught by the natives may be estimated at somewhat about 
two hundred thousand fish on an average. 

Salmon trout (Salmo carpw) occur in the lakes and brooks 
and at their outlets along the whole coast, but their capture will 
hardly ever attain any importance, because it necessitates people 
who undertake it to stay in remote places during the best part of 
the summer time. A few are caught in nets to be exported, while 
the greater number are either harpooned or speared from the 
river sides or from weirs built across the rivers. 

The nanartak, or larger halibut (Hippoglossus vulgaris), oc- 
curs on the banks as well as in different places outside the islands 
up to 70° north latitude in depths of from thirty to fifty fathoms. 
Of late the capture of this fish has become an object of commer- 
cial speculation, and foreign ships, chiefly American, have been 
engaged in it, apparently with better success than that of the cod 
fishery. A halibut of this species weighs from twenty to a hun- 
dred pounds, and its flesh is fat and much valued. Superior in 
taste as well as fatness is the smaller halibut, or kaleralik {H. 
pinguis), which is angled for in the ice fiords at depths of about 
two hundred fathoms. The ' k red fish " (Sebastes norvegicus), 
found only in certain though pretty numerous grounds south of 
08° north latitude, is hauled up from depths of one hundred and 
twenty to one hundred and eighty fathoms, and its flesh is like- 
wise rich in oil, which occasionally, in times of want, is extracted 
by boiling, and used instead of blubber. The nepisak {Cyclopterus 
lumpus), perhaps the fattest of the Greenland fishes, goes inshore 
in April and May for the purpose of spawning, and forms at this 
season, during a couple of weeks, the chief food in certain places, 
the spawn being also collected and considered a dainty. 

The angmagsat, or capelins (llallotus villosus), has from times 
of old yielded the most profitable fishery to the Greenlanders, and 
may, in a dried state in winter time, frequently be said to have 
constituted the daily bread of the natives. They are shovelled on 
shore by means of small nets by women and children, and spread 
over the rocks to dry during four weeks of May and June, when 
they crowd to the shores of inlets south of 70° north latitude to 
spawn. This fishery has now considerably decreased, but may 



242 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

still be considered to yield one million and a half pounds weight 
or more of imdried fish yearly. 

Lastly, we have to mention certain kinds of fish which, al- 
though inferior in quality, are nevertheless of inestimable value 
to the improvident population on account of their being so widely 
spread, and generally to be had at a season when other provisions 
are most scanty. These are the ovak, or smaller cod (Oadus ovak), 
the frogfish, or kanajok (Coitus scorpius), and the misarkornak, 
or smallest cod (Gadus agilis). The two former are found to- 
gether almost everywhere, though gradually decreasing in num- 
ber toward the north, while, on the other hand, the latter seems 
to begin about the middle part of the coast, increasing so as to 
become abundant in the furthest north. If to the capture of these 
fishes we finally add the gathering of common mussels, which are 
generally to be found at low water where the shore is not totally 
closed up with ice, besides . . . seaweeds, we have enumerated 
the several means by which the final shortcomings of the yearly 
housekeeping of a Greenland family are made up for, and which 
almost every year, in some place or other, become the means of 
saving the people from direst want, and not unfrequently from 
death by starvation.* 

Morch catalogues 226 species of molluscs belonging 
to western Greenland, of which he had seen 176 species, 
while 50 were reported from records by others. There 
are 7 species of land univalve shells and 4 of fresh-water 
shells. Some of the others live on the seashore and 
along the fiords, between the levels of the high and low 
w 7 ater of tides, which there have a range of about ten 
feet; but the great majority are obtained by dredging 
in depths ranging from the low- water line down to 
1,750 fathoms, or two miles. Many of the marine shells, 
however, are also obtained from the stomachs of the cod 
and other fishes which feed on them. 



* Danish Greenland : Its People and its Products, 1877, pp. 
131-135. 



THE ANIMALS OF GREENLAND. 243 

The insects of Greenland in Schjodte's list, made in 
1857, number 124 species, including 21 beetles, 29 species 
of butterflies and moths, and 48 species of flies and mos- 
quitoes. Mosquitoes are encountered very plentifully 
by nearly all who visit Greenland. During the warmth 
of the arctic summer of constant sunlight they become 
sometimes far more abundant than even in the northern 
United States and Canada, where, both in the woods 
and on the prairies, they often astonish and harass those 
who have lived chiefly in towns or in the older and 
longer cultivated parts of the country. Hansen writes 
of his experience one memorable morning with an ex- 
ceptional abundance of mosquitoes on the east coast of 
Greenland, previous to his setting out on his journey 
across the ice sheet. 

I woke to find myself scratching my face vigorously, and to 
see the whole tent full of mosquitoes. We had begun by taking 
great pleasure in the company of these creatures on the occasion 
of our first landing on the Greenland coast, but this day cured us 
completely of any predilections in that way ; and if there is a 
morning of my life on which I look back with unmitigated horror, 
it is the morning which I now record. I have not ceased to won- 
der, indeed, that we retained our reason. As soon as I woke I put 
on my clothes with all speed and rushed out into the open air to 
escape my tormentors. But this was but transferring myself 
from the frying pan to the fire. Whole clouds of these blood- 
thirsty demons swooped upon my face and hands, the latter being 
at once covered with what might well have passed for rough 
woollen gloves. 

But breakfast was our greatest trial, for when one can not get 
a scrap of food into one's mouth except it be wrapped in a mantle 
of mosquitoes, things are come to a pretty pass indeed. We fled 
to the highest point of rock which was at hand, where a bitter 
wind was blowing, and where we hoped to be allowed to eat our 
breakfast in peace and enjoy the only pleasure of the life we led. 
We ran from one rock to another, hung our handkerchiefs before 
our faces, pulled down our caps over our necks and ears, struck 



244 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

out and beat the air like lunatics, and, in short, fought a most 
desperate encounter against these overwhelming odds, but all in 
vain. Wherever we stood, wherever we walked or ran, we carried 
w r ith us, as the sun his planets, each our own little world of satel- 
lites, until at last in our despair we gave ourselves over to the tor- 
mentors, and, falling prostrate where we stood, suffered our mar- 
tyrdom unresistingly while we devoured food and mosquitoes 
with all possible despatch. Then we launched our boats and fled 
out to sea. Even here our pursuers followed us, but by whirling 
round us in mad frenzy tarpaulins and coats and all that came to 
hand, and eventually by getting the wind in our favour, we at 
last succeeded in beating off, or at least escaping from, our 
enemy * 

In the remaining and lower classes of the Greenland 
fauna some idea of the extensive observations and re- 
searches of naturalists visiting the country or examining 
collections from it may be obtained by the following- 
totals of the species enumerated in Dr. Rink's work : 
From Liitken's tabulation, in the class of the Tunicata, 
13 species of the simple ascidians are known, while the 
compound ascidians, though rather numerous, have not 
been studied and identified ; of Polyzoa, also according 
to Liitken, 64 species are known ; of arachnids (spiders 
and their allies), according to Schjodte, 13 species; of 
Crustacea, according to Bernhardt and Liitken, 202 
species ; of the Annulata (annelid worms), according to 
Liitken, who also is authority for all the following, 133 
species ; of Entozoa (intestinal worms), 62 species ; Echi- 
nodermata (starfishes, etc.), 34 species ; Anthozoa (sea 
anemones, etc.), 15 species; acalephs (jellyflshes, etc.), 
33 species ; and sponges, 28 species. 

* The First Crossing of Greenland, 1890, vol. i, pp. 396-398. 



CHAPTER X. 

EXPLORATIONS OF THE INLAND ICE OF GREENLAND. 

When Agassiz, in 1840, from his studies of the gla- 
ciers of the Alps and of their previous much greater 
extent, announced his grand generalization that the 
drift covering northern lands was due to great ice sheets 
which since have vanished, little was definitely known of 
the existence of the ice sheets which now have been as- 
certained to cover the greater part of the antarctic con- 
tinent and of Greenland. Reports of scanty observations 
suggesting the existence of these great continental ice- 
fields in both the arctic and antarctic regions had been 
brought to Europe, but no demonstrative explorations 
had yet proved that the snow and ice were of vast ex- 
tent and thickness. Not only has the glacial theory of 
Agassiz received continually cumulative support by its 
affording adequate explanations, derivable from no other 
source, for many characteristics of the drift and for its 
various phases of deposition and the diversity of condi- 
tions attending its origin, as these have been gradually 
made known by the progress of geological surveys, but 
also the theory has found exemplification by now exist- 
ing ice sheets, that of Greenland being found to have an 
area approximately one fourth as large as the Pleistocene 
ice sheet of Europe, while that surrounding the south 
pole is somewhat more extensive than the old ice sheet 

245 




1# 

^'V?"\ \ BAY I 



_ / \ f ^ 






246 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

of North America, which covered about 4,000,000 square 
miles. 

It was not long, however, after the glacial studies of 
Agassiz had set all geologists to new and fruitful think- 
ing and observing for explanations of the drift that the 
voyages of Eoss, in 1841 and 1842, brought tidings of 
the border of the antarctic ice sheet terminating in the 
ocean with frontal perpendicular cliffs 150 to 200 feet 
or more in height, along which, in latitude 77° 45' to 78° 
south, he sailed 450 miles eastward from Mounts Erebus 
and Terror, finding only one place low enough to allow 
the upper surface of the ice to be viewed from the mast- 
head. There it was a plain of snowy whiteness, reach- 
ing into the interior as far as the eye could see. 

These and other voyages to the antarctic regions 
show that land, chiefly covered by a vast mer de glace, 
extends to a distance of 12 to 25 degrees from the south 
pole, haviug an area, according to Sir Wyville Thomson, 
of about 4,500,000 square miles. Whether the antarctic 
ice sheet covered an equal or greater extent in the Pleis- 
tocene period, contemporaneous with the glaciation of 
now temperate regions, we have no means of knowing. 
That the ice plain has a considerable slope from its cen- 
tral portions toward its boundary is shown by its abun- 
dant outflow into the sea, by which its advancing edge 
is uplifted and broken into multitudes of bergs, many of 
them tabular, having broad, nearly flat tops. As de- 
scribed by Moseley in Notes by a Naturalist on the 
Challenger, these bergs give strange beauty, sublimity, 
and peril to the Antarctic Ocean, upon which they float 
away northward until they are melted. Many parts of 
the borders of the land underlying this ice sheet are low 
and almost level, as is known by the flat- topped and 
horizontally stratified bergs, but some other areas are 



EXPLORATIONS OF THE INLAND ICE. 247 

high and mountainous. Due south of New Zealand the 
volcanoes Terror and Erebus, between 800 and 900 miles 
from the pole, rising respectively about 11,000 and 
12,000 feet above the sea, suggest that portions or the 
whole of this circumpolar continent may have been re- 
cently raised from the ocean to form a land surface, 
which on account of its geographic position has become 
ice- clad. 

Inside its border of mountains, Greenland is envel- 
oped by an ice sheet which has a length of about 1,500 
miles, from latitude 60° 30' to latitude 82°, with an 
average width of almost 400 miles, giving it an area 
of about 575,000 square miles.* On the east this ice 
sheet in some places stretches across the mountains, and 
the coast consists of its ice cliffs ; and on the west glaciers 
flow from the inland ice through gaps of the mountains 
to the heads of the many fiords and bays, where the 
outflowing ice is broken into bergs of every irregular 

* Dr. Henry Rink, in 1877, estimated the area of Greenland as 
512,000 square miles, of which he considered the inland ice sheet 
to cover 320,000 square miles. Dr. John Murray, in the Scottish 
Geographical Magazine for January, 1888 (vol. iv, p. 7), computes 
the area of Greenland, according to maps, to be 914,550 square 
miles : and he estimates its mass above the sea level to be 556,350 
cubic miles, the average elevation being regarded as about 3,200 
feet. Lieut. R. E. Peary, in the Bulletin of the American Geo- 
graphical Society (vol. xxiii, p. 159, June 30, 1891), estimated the 
area of Greenland as 740,000 or 750,000 square miles; and he 
stated that " no less than four fifths of this area, or 600,000 square 
miles, ... is covered by the inland ice." Later, in Johnson's 
Universal Cyclopedia (vol. iv, 1894, pp. 25-27), Peary gives the 
whole area as about 500,000 square miles, of which the ice sheet is 
thought to occupy " over 400.000 square miles." Measurements 
on our map of Greenland show the whole area of the country to 
be very nearly 680.000 square miles, and of the ice sheet about 
575,000 square miles. 



248 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

shape and borne away by the sea. One of these ice 
streams, discovered and named by Kane the Humboldt 
Glacier, is 60 miles wide where it enters Peabody Bay, 
above which it rises in cliffs 300 feet high. The general 
boundary of the ice sheet upon the mountains and 
plateaus of the border of Greenland, excepting the out- 
flowing valley glaciers, has usually a height of 1,500 to 
2,000 feet above the sea ; and thence the ice surface 
gradually rises to the great altitude of 8,000 to 9,000 
feet, or more, in its central part. Near its boundary the 
ice sheet, there undergoing more ablation or superficial 
melting than snow accumulation, is commonly much 
intersected by crevasses, due to its flow over a surface of 
varying gradients, and is made uneven by the small pin- 
nacles and ridges of its irregular melting, so that it is 
very difficult of ascent for the first few miles. Farther 
within the ice area, it has been found by Hayes, Nor- 
denskjold, Hansen, and Peary to have a very even snow- 
covered surface, well adapted for travel with sledges and 
snowshoes. This great central region of the inland ice, 
with its snow covering, is the analogue of the neve fields 
or gathering grounds of the ice of all Alpine glaciers. 
Instead of an ice surface, it is wholly a vast snow neve 
field after the comparatively narrow peripheral zone of 
ablation, ice ridges, and yawning crevasses is passed. 

In a valuable chapter of Hansen's First Crossing of 
Greenland, which is also largely reprinted in the Bulle- 
tin of the American Geographical Society (vol. xxiii, pp. 
171-193, June 30, 1891), the various journeys on the 
Greenland ice sheet, and observations of its margin, are 
brought under review ; and from this and other sources 
the following notes, arranged in chronologic order, are 
derived : 

An ancient Norse treatise, called the Kongespeilet^ 



EXPLORATIONS OF THE INLAND ICE, 249 

or " King's Mirror," written apparently in the thirteenth 
century, portrays, as quoted by Nansen, the condition of 
the interior of Greenland, so far as the early Icelandic 
immigrants had explored the country : 

Seeing that thou hast asked whether the land is free of ice or 
not, or whether it is covered with ice like the sea, thou must know 
that that part of the country which is bare of ice is small, and that 
all the rest is covered with ice, and that people therefore know not 
whether the country be large or small, seeing that all mountains 
and all valleys are covered with ice so that one can nowhere find 
an opening therein. And yet it would seem most credible that 
there should be an opening either in the valleys that lie among 
the mountains or along the shores, by which animals can find 
their way, since otherwise animals could not wander hither from 
other lands unless there be an opening in the ice and land free 
from ice. But oftentimes have men tried to come up into the 
land upon the highest mountains that be found there and in divers 
places, in order to see round about them, and to discover if perad- 
venture they could find land which was bare of ice and habitable, 
and they have nowhere found such, but only that on which people 
now dwell, and for a little way along the very shore. 

After the recolonization of Greenland in 1721 by the 
Norwegian missionary Hans Egede and .his companions, 
only two years passed before the enterprise of the Bergen 
Company, under whose patronage for the exploration of 
the land and development of commercial relations with 
the Eskimos the new mission and colony were established, 
found expression in the following letter of instructions 
sent to Egede : 

It seems to us quite advisable, if indeed the thing has not been 
done already, that a party of eight men should be told off to 
march through the country, which, according to the map, would 
appear to be only from eighty to a hundred miles across at its 
narrowest part, for the purpose of reaching, if it be possible, the 
east side, where the old colonies have been, and on their way to 
look out for forests and other things. If this is done, as we 



250 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

should much like, the thing must be undertaken in the early 
summer; and, furthermore, the men must be provided each with 
pack, provisions, and gun, as well as with a compass, in order that 
they may be able to find their way back again ; and, thirdly, the 
men of the party must both look out warily for the attacks of 
savages, in case they should fall in with any on the way, and must 
also make all possible observations, and wherever they pass must 
raise piles of stones upon high places, which will serve as marks 
both for this and future occasions. 

Nansen well remarks of this recommendation that 
it is "an amusing instance of the achievements of 
colonial policy under the guidance of geographers of 
the study and easy chair." Egede replied that the 
maps were unreliable, and that to traverse the country 
to the east coast would be difficult or impossible, on 
account of the high cliffs and the mountains of ice and 
snow. In 1727 a letter sent to Europe from Godthaab 
stated that " following the backbone or central ridge of 
the country from south to north was an appalling tract 
of ice, or mountain covered with ice." 

Undaunted by this report, the home Government of 
Denmark, which had succeeded the commercial com- 
pany of Bergen, Norway, in the support of the Green- 
land colony, in 1728 instructed Paarss, who had been 
appointed Governor of Greenland, " to spare no labour 
or pains, and to allow himself to be deterred by no 
danger or difficulty, but to endeavour by all possible 
means, and by one way or another, to cross the country 
. . . for the purpose of learning whether there still exist 
descendants of the old Norwegians ; what language they 
speak ; whether they are Christians or heathens, as well 
as what method of government and manner of life pre- 
vail among them ; . . . and what is the true nature of 
the country ; whether there is forest, pasturage, coal, 
minerals, or other things of the kind ; whether there 



EXPLORATIONS OF TEE INLAND ICE. 251 

are horses, cattle, or other animals suited to the service 
of man." 

With the expectation that the expedition could ride 
on horseback across Greenland, eleven horses were sent 
from Denmark, but five died on the voyage, and the 
others " soon perished from hunger and hardships in 
Greenland." After a winter of the utmost distress and 
discontent in Paarss's colony, at the newly founded 
station of Godthaab, he set out, with seven others, April 
25, 1729, on the proposed expedition, sailing to the head 
of Ameralik Fiord (which in 1888 was the end of Han- 
sen's journey across Greenland), and thence marching 
two days inland to the edge of the ice sheet. The Gov- 
ernor described his efforts there as follows : 

When we had ascended this and advanced upon it for two 
hours at our great peril all farther progress was denied us by 
reason of the great chasms which we found thereon. ... As soon 
as we saw that no farther advance was possible, we sat ourselves 
down upon the ice, with our guns fired a Danish salvo of nine 
shots, and in a glass of spirits drank the health of our gracious 
king on a spot on which it had never been drunk before, at the 
same time paying to the " ice mountain " an honour to which it 
had never before attained : and after we had sat and rested our- 
selves for about one hour we turned back again. 

The large boulders which were seen on the border of 
the ice were thought to have been swept upon it " by 
great and violent winds and tempests, which there have 
incredible fury." 

Nansen observes that this expedition, though rather 
ridiculous in its achievements, " can not have failed to 
have considerable effect at home in Copenhagen, seeing 
that the next expedition organized by the Danish Gov- 
ernment was not sent out till 1878, or a hundred and 
fifty years later." 



252 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

A more extended exploration of the ice border was 
accomplished by Lars Dalager, a merchant of Frederiks- 
haab, in September, 1751, reaching large nunataks a 
few miles inside the ice sheet at a distance of about 
twenty miles inland from the termination of the great 
glacier known as " Frederikshaabs Isblink." Of his 
journey Dalager wrote as follows : 

My errand was only to divert myself with my gun, but on this 
occasion it was not long before I had resolved to set out on a 
journey across the " ice mountain," to " Osterbygd," to which 
determination I was led by a new discovery made . . . by a 
Greenland er, who had been so high up while out hunting that he 
could see distinctly, as he said, the . . . mountains on the eastern 
side. This moved me, as I have said, with a desire at least to see 
the land, like Moses of old, and I took with me the aforesaid man 
and his daughter, together with two young Greenlanders. We 
set out upon our journey after having already advanced thus far 
into a fiord by the southern side of the glacier. ... In the morn- 
ing we committed ourselves to the ice, purposing to reach the first 
mountain top, which lies in the middle of the ice field, and which 
was five miles distant from us. So far the ground was as flat and 
smooth as the streets of Copenhagen, and all the difference that I 
could see was that here it was rather more slippery, but on the 
other hand one had not to wade out to the sides in the slush in 
order to avoid being overthrown by the posting horses and car- 
riages. . . . [Thence they went forward the next day] to the 
uppermost mountain on the ice, called Omertlok, to which it was 
also about five miles, but here the ice was very rough and full of 
cracks, for which reason it took us seven hours to reach it. 

From this nunatak they looked across the ice north- 
eastward some fifteen miles to other peaks, which the 
Eskimo hunter and Dalager supposed to be near the 
east coast, but which are now known as Jensen's nuna- 
taks (noticed more fully on a later page) and are found 
to be situated also near to the western border of the ice 
sheet, in comparison with its entire width. 



EXPLORATIONS OF THE INLAND ICE. 253 

Dalager wished to advance farther, but says : " I was 
constrained for many reasons to set my face towards 
home, one being very important, that we were now 
going no better than barefooted ; for, though each of 
us was provided with two pairs of good boots for the 
journey, yet they were already quite worn out by reason 
of the sharpness of the stones and ice. And as the 
handmaid whom we had in our company had, to our 
great misfortune, lost her needle, we could get none of 
our things mended. For this cause we were much em- 
barrassed, though we consoled each other with laughter 
as we contemplated the naked toes peeping out from 
the boots." The crevasses of the ice surface seemed k 
Dalager to oppose no insuperable obstacles to a journey 
across it to the east coast; but on other accounts he 
thought the crossing impracticable, because " one can 
not drag as much provision as one should reasonably be 
provided with on such a march, and, further, on account 
of the intolerably severe cold, in which I think it all 
but impossible that any living creature could exist, if 
he were to encamp for many successive nights upon the 
icefield. ... I can say that of all the bitter winter 
nights on which I have camped on the ground in 
Greenland, none have so much distressed me by rea- 
son of the cold as these nights early in the month of 
September." 

Passing the slight observations of the inland ice by 
Fabricius and Giesecke, we find a long interval of about 
fifty years which brought no additional knowledge on 
this subject. The next important author was Dr. Henry 
Rink, whose elaborate work on Greenland, resulting 
from many years of residence and exploration there, 
was published first in Denmark, in 1857, and twenty 
years later was revised and published both in Danish 



254: GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

and English. This work, following upon the glacial 
theory of Agassiz and the new zeal with which the 
drift of Europe and North America was being studied, 
greatly interested physicists and geologists in its de- 
scriptions and map of the Greenland ice sheet. 

No exploration of the ice sheet to any considerable 
distance from its margin had been done when Kink, de- 
scribing the relationship between the western ice-free 
land belt, with its deeply indenting fiords, and the great 
inland ice enveloped area, wrote : 

Wherever these fiords have been followed to their termina- 
tions, and an attempt has been made to penetrate the regions 
beyond, or to attain a view from the adjoining heights, the coun- 
try has been found to exhibit the same continuous waste of ice. 
When visiting the southernmost portion of the mainland in the 
environs of Cape Farewell, near the latitude of Christiania, we 
meet with the very same hindrance as on the coast a thousand 
miles farther north. On entering these southern fiords we are 
first struck with the luxuriant vegetation, gradually increasing 
toward their termination. The charming scenery of the verdant 
valleys and slopes here displayed leads the traveller to suppose 
that a few miles still farther inland the country will be covered 
with wood, and change its arctic character. So far from this, 
wherever we follow a fiord to its source and try to proceed farther 
in the same direction by land, we are suddenly arrested by a wall 
of ice rising abruptly from the ground, which in the immediate 
neighbourhood produces vegetation. But if we subsequently, in 
order to find some other passage, ascend a neighbouring hill, 
thinking that the ice wall probably belongs to, some glacier of a 
limited extent, we see that it forms the unbroken edge of an ele- 
vated icy plateau, sloping gently down toward the sea and occupy- 
ing the whole interior. As far as this plain can be overlooked 
from the heights of the outer land, or has been travelled over (to 
a distance of twenty miles from its nearest seaward border), it 
only attains a height of a little more than two thousand feet, but 
must be supposed to still rise very gradually toward the wholly 
unknown interior, where no human foot as vet has trodden. This 



EXPLORATIONS OF THE INLAND ICE. 255 

elevation is much less than that of the outlying headlands which 
sever the inland ice from the open sea, which to the north and the 
south frequently attain a height of from three thousand to four 
thousand feet. This circumstance, combined with its uniformity 
and other reasons, . . . contradicts the opinion that, like other 
glaciers or mers de glace, it rests upon a high table-land. On the 
contrary, its probable thickness and extent may rather be com- 
pared with an inundation that has overspread the interior in the 
course of ages, only for some reason or other kept within a certain 
limit toward the sea. The analogy to an inundation is further- 
more in accordance with occasional small insular hills or rocks, 
called nunataks by the natives. These, however, seldom rise 
from the uniform horizontal surface, representing the still emerg- 
ing mountain tops of the vanished land, which, on the whole, at 
least within the first fifty or one hundred miles from its western 
border, seems to have been low in comparison with the bold head- 
lands which project as its continuation seaward.* 

Incited by Bink's descriptions of the inland ice, and 
by the work of geologists in exploring the character and 
extent of the North American and European drift de- 
posits, and in seeking to explain their origin, numerous 
observers from the years 1859 and 1860 onward have 
added much to what was previously known of this great 
ice sheet. 

Schaffner, in 1859, and Eae, near the end of October 
in the following year, made short excursions of recon- 
noissance on the border of the ice sheet in the vicinity 
of Julianshaab (latitude 60° 40'), near the south end of 
Greenland. 

Twelve hundred miles farther north, at nearly the 
same time with Rae's expedition, a more notable jour- 
ney on the ice east of Port Foulke (latitude 78° 18') was 
made by Dr. I. I. Hayes, starting October 22d and oc- 
cupying six days. On the second day Hayes and his 

* Danish Greenland, pp. 41, 42. 
18 



256 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

five companions reached the ice border and scaled its 
steep and much crevassed frontal slope, and advanced 
thence an estimated distance of five miles. "As we 
neared the centre of the glacier," Hayes writes, "the 
surface became more smooth, and gave evidence of 
greater security. The great roughness of the sides was 
no doubt due to an uneven conformation of that portion 
of the valley upon which the ice rested." For this dis- 
tance the angle of ascent was estimated as 6° ; but the 
next day, when the party travelled "thirty miles," the 
gradient was found to decrease to about 2°. Dr. Hayes 
further writes of this journey, which was nearly due 
east, along or near to the parallel of 78°, upon the part 
of the ice sheet immediately north of Inglefield Gulf, 
being the same tract which Peary crossed in 1892, when 
setting out on his great journey to Independence Bay : 

From a surface of hard ice we had come upon an even plain 
of compacted snow, through which no true ice could be found 
after digging down to the depth of three feet. At that depth, 
however, the snow assumed a more gelid condition, and, although 
not actually ice, we could not penetrate farther into it with our 
shovel without great difficulty. The snow was covered with a 
crust through which the foot broke at every step, thus making the 
travelling very laborious. [The distances, therefore, and probably 
also the altitude stated later, seem overestimated.] 

About twenty-five miles were made the following day, the 
track being of the same character as the day before, and at about 
the same elevation; but the condition of my party warned me 
against the hazard of continuing the journey. The temperature 
had fallen to 30° below zero, and a fierce gale of wind meeting us 
in the face drove us into our tent for shelter, and, after resting 
there for a few hours, compelled our return. I had, however, 
accomplished the principal purpose of my journey, and had not 
in any case intended to proceed more than one day farther at 
this critical period of the year. 

. . . The temperature fell to 34° below zero during the night ; 



EXPLORATIONS OF THE INLAND ICE. 257 

and it is a circumstance worthy of mention that the lowest record 
of the thermometer at Port Foulke during our absence was 22° 
higher. . . . The storm steadily increased in force, and, the tem- 
perature falling lower and lower, we were all at length forced to 
quit the tent, and in active exercise strive to prevent ourselves 
from freezing. To face the wind was not possible, and shelter 
was nowhere to be found upon the unbroken plain. There was 
but one direction in which we could move, and that was with our 
backs to the gale. . . . Our situation at this camp was as sublime 
as it was dangerous. We had attained an altitude of five thousand 
feet above the level of the sea, and we were seventy miles from 
the coast, in the midst of a vast frozen Sahara, immeasurable to 
the human eye. There was neither hill, mountain, nor gorge 
anywhere in view. We had completely sunk the strip of land 
which lies between the mer de glace and the sea ; and no object 
met the eye but our feeble tent, which bent to the storm. Fitful 
clouds swept over the face of the full-orbed moon, which, descend- 
ing toward the horizon, glimmered through the drifting snow 
that whirled out of the illimitable distance, and scudded over the 
icy plain — to the eye in undulating lines of downy softness, to the 
flesh in showers of piercing darts. 

Our only safety was in flight ; and, like a ship driven before a 
tempest which she can not withstand and which has threatened 
her ruin, we turned our backs to the gale ; and, hastening down 
the slope, we ran to save our lives. We travelled upwards of 
forty miles, and had descended about three thousand feet before 
we ventured to halt The wind was much less severe at this point 
than at the higher level, and the temperature had risen twelve 
degrees. Although we reposed without risk, yet our canvas 
shelter was very cold ; and. notwithstanding the reduced force of 
the gale, there was some difficulty in keeping the tent from being 
blown away.* 

On June 19, 1867, Edward Whymper, the dis- 
tinguished English traveller and mountain climber, as- 
cended the border of the inland ice from the Ilordlek 
Fiord, near latitude 69° 30', about twenty miles north of 

* The Open Polar Sea, 1867, pp. 132-135. 



258 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

Jakobsliavn. This was a reconnoissance with the in- 
tention of learning the best place for beginning a more 
extensive sledge journey which he hoped to make later 
in the same summer. Whymper's first observations 
and his subsequent fruitless endeavours are summa- 
rized from his narrative, by Nansen, as follows : 

The first view showed the surface of the " inland ice " to be 
much smoother and far less formidable than had been expected. 
The party ascended it and advanced without difficulty, finding 
the snow harder and better to walk upon the farther they went. 
When they had pushed in some six miles, and reached a height 
of about fourteen hundred feet, and the surface appeared to them 
to be equally good as far inward as they could see, they con- 
sidered that the object of the excursion had been attained, and 
that there was nothing to be gained by advancing farther. They 
were convinced that the snowfield was eminently fitted for dog 
sledging, and the Eskimos declared that they could easily drive 
thirty-five or forty miles a day. They all turned back with the 
best hopes of success, "for there appeared to be nothing to pre- 
vent a walk right across Greenland." 

However, as at Ilordlek the ice does not quite come down to 
the water's edge, Whymper determined to look for a suitable spot 
where this was the case, so that he might take to the ice at once 
and avoid the transfer of his baggage over land. So between 
June 24 and 27 he made another excursion to the edge of the ice- 
field, this time to " Jakobshavns Isfiord," as it is called, which 
lies to the south of the colony. Here, however, the ice was so 
fissured and rough that any transport by means of dog sledges 
would have been impossible, and therefore the spot which they 
had first visited was decided upon as the starting point of the 
expedition. 

A number of preparations were, however, necessary, and in his 
attempt to carry out these Whymper was met by difficulties 
which proved almost insuperable. . . . Most of these obstacles 
were overcome in one way or another, and on July 20 the expe- 
dition was ready to start. The party consisted of five members, 
Eskimos and Europeans, in addition to Whymper himself, one of 
the latter being the English traveller, Dr. Robert Brown. Two 



EXPLORATIONS OP THE INLAND ICE. 259 

days or so were spent in carrying the baggage up from the fiord 
to the edge of the ice, and three more in waiting for more favour- 
able weather. 

Meanwhile Whymper ascended one of the neighbouring 
heights to obtain a view over the ice, and was most unpleasantly 
surprised to find that the surface had completely changed its 
aspect. When he had seen it a month before there had been a 
covering " of the purest, most spotless snow," but this had now 
melted away "and had left exposed a veritable ocean of ice, 
broken up by millions of crevasses of every conceivable form and 
dimensions." . . . However, on July 26, as the weather was now 
better, an attempt was made to push over the ice eastward. But 
after advancing for a few hours, and having covered only a 
couple of miles of ground, the party were brought to a standstill 
by the breaking of one of the runners of a large sledge, by the 
splitting of another on one of the smaller, and the general dilapi- 
dation of the rest, owing to the rough treatment to which they 
had been exposed. 

. . . The result of the visit to Greenland was that Whymper's 
belief in the existence of bare land in the interior of the continent 
was considerably shaken, and in 1871, in his book Scrambles 
among the Alps, he writes, " The interior of Greenland appears 
to be absolutely covered by glacier between 68° 30' and 70° north 
latitude." ... He also estimated the height of the most distant 
part of the " inland ice " within view at " not less than eight 
thousand feet," an elevation which, though somewhat too high, 
can not be very far from the truth.* 

Mr. Whymper again visited Greenland in 1872, and 
from the summit of a mountain 6,800 feet high, near 
the large Umanak Fiord (latitude 71°), he saw eastward 
" a straight, unbroken crest of snow-covered ice, con- 
cealing the land so absolutely that not a single crag ap- 
peared above its surface." Sighting with a theodolite 
to this horizon, he estimated its height to be "consider- 
ably in excess of 10,000 feet." He also concluded " that 

*Nansen's First Crossing of Greenland, vol. i, pp. 474-479. 



260 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

the whole of the interior, from north to south and east 
to west, is entirely enveloped in snow and ice." 

The first journey of Baron A. E. Nordenskjold on 
the Greenland ice sheet, accompanied by Dr. Berggren 
and two Eskimos, was July 19th to the 25th, 1870, 
starting from the head of Aulatsivik Fiord, near lati- 
tude 68° 20', and advancing nearly due east an estimated 
distance of about 35 miles upon the inland ice,* to the 
altitude of 2,200 feet. Large streams on the ice sur- 
face were encountered, " which could not be crossed 
without a bridge." After flowing some distance, how- 
ever, these streams, produced by the superficial melting, 
usually plunged into deep " glacier wells " or moulins. 
Small lakes and pools of water were also found on the 
ice, into which rivulets flowed, while their waters perco- 
lated downward from the lake bottoms. " When one laid 
the ear down on the ice, one heard from all sides a pe- 
culiar subterranean murmur from the streams inclosed 
below, while now and again a single loud cannonlike 
report announced the formation of some new crevasse." 
Beyond the point of turning back, " the inland ice con- 
tinued constantly to rise toward the interior, so that the 
horizon toward the east, north, and south was termi- 
nated by an ice border almost as smooth as that of the 
ocean." The temperature at night was a little below 
freezing, but in the middle of the day it rose to 45° or 
46° F., near the 7ieve surface, and even to 75° or 85° in 
the sunshine. " During the whole of our journey on the 
ice," writes Nordenskjold,f " we constantly enjoyed fine 



* This distance was estimated by Nordenskjold to be " about 
80 miles," but Nansen's estimate, as here given, is more probable. 

f Geological Magazine, I, vol. ix, pp. 303-306, 355-368, July 
and August, 1872. 



EXPLORATIONS OF THE INLAND ICE. 2G1 

weather, frequently there was not a single cloud visible 
in the whole sky." 

Concerning long past and recent fluctuations in the 
extent of this part of the ice sheet, Nordenskjold re- 
marks : " The inland ice, in former times, evidently 
covered the whole of Aulatsivik's Fiord, together with 
the surrounding valleys, mountains, and hills. The ice 
has accordingly, during' the last thousand or hundred 
thousand years, considerably retired. Now, on the con- 
trary, its limit in these parts is advancing, and that by 
no means slowly." 

A fine, gray powder, called " kryoconite," which was 
believed by INordenskjold to be cosmic dust, was found 
on the ice ; but analyses indicate that this is dust blown 
from the mountains of the coast, and it does not occur 
in noticeable amount, according to Nansen, on the east- 
ern portion of the ice sheet, where his ascent was made 
upon ice bordered by only little bare land. On account 
of the sun's warmth, the kryoconite on certain tracts 
had sunk into the ice, leading to the formation of cylin- 
drical and bowllike holes from one to two feet deep, 
which sometimes were so plentiful that it was difficult 
to find place for one's feet and for walking among them. 

During the year 1875 the first exact measurements 
of the rate of flow of the Greenland glaciers were made 
by Helland, who visited five ice fiords, besides several 
small glaciers not extending into the sea, upon the part 
of the west coast between Egedesminde (latitude 68° 42') 
and the fiord of Kangerdlugssuak (near latitude 71° 15'). 
He also ascended the front of the inland ice near the 
same place where Whymper had done so eight years 
before. Helland ascertained that the central part of 
the front of the great glacier in the Jakobshavn ice fiord 
(latitude 69° 15') moved in July at the rate of 64 feet 



262 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

daily. The breadth of this glacier is 14,000 feet, or 
2§ miles, and its depth in the centre exceeds 1,000 
feet. Five years later, the movement of this glacier in 
a part about 4,000 feet nearer to its side was found, by 
Hammer to vary from 33 to 51 feet daily in March and 
April. The declivity of its surface is ascertained to be 
only a half of one degree, or about 46 feet per mile. 

The Torsukatak Glacier (near latitude 69° 50'), hav- 
ing a width of about five miles, was found by Helland 
to move, at its centre, 30 to 32 feet daily ; and a year or 
two later Steenstrup measured its rate at some distance 
from the centre, and found it to be from 16 to 25 feet 
in twenty-four hours. 

The Karajat Glacier (latitude 70° 30'), at the head 
of the Umanak Fiord, with a width of 19,000 to 22,000 
feet, or about four miles, moves in summer, according 
to Steenstrup, 22 to 38 feet a day ; and the Itivdliar- 
suk Glacier (latitude 70° 45' ), 17,500 feet wide, was 
found to move 46 feet a clay in April, and 21 to 28 
feet daily in May. 

Fastest in rate of advance among all the glaciers of 
Greenland thus far measured, is the great glacier out- 
flowing into the Bay of Augpadlartok (latitude 73°), near 
Upernivik, which, according to Ryder's observations in 
August, 1886, was found to have a velocity of 100 feet in 
twenty-four hours ; but a measurement at nearly the 
same point in April showed a progress of only 34 feet 
daily. 

In the district of Julianshaab, near the southern 
extremity of Greenland, the measurements of three gla- 
ciers in 1876, by Steenstrup, Kornerup, and Holm, 
gave maximum rates of only about 12 feet in twenty- 
four hours ; but even this is three or four times the 
maximum rates of the glaciers of the Alps. 



EXPLORATIONS OF THE INLAND ICE. 263 

These observers, excepting Helland, their pioneer, 
were sent out for these and other explorations by the 
Geological and Geographical Survey of Greenland, and 
their work has been reported in the Meddelelser om 
Greenland, published in Copenhagen from 1879 onward. 
Summing up their work on the movement of the gla- 
ciers, Kink in 1888 stated that the rate of motion of 
twenty- five glaciers, or more, terminating in deep fiords, 
had been accurately determined, the average rate in 
summer in their central portions being 51 feet a day. 
During the colder portions of the year they move more 
slowly, and at all times the rate of motion diminishes 
from the centre to the sides. " The true home of ice- 
bergs," according to Rink, is " the coast between 68J° 
and 75° north latitude, which contains all the large 
ice fiords on the western side that are thoroughly 
known."* 

Helland, in his views looking eastward from five 
high peaks of the western land tract, between latitudes 
69° 10' and 71° 15', " saw only ice, like a great sea, 
lying at a much lower level than these peaks, but rising 
slowly inland and forming an undulating sky line. The 
surface of the glaciers in the fiords was mostly free from 
stones, except at the margin. At the Jakobshavn Fiord 
the discharge of ice in July was equal to one large iceberg 
a day of about 16,000,000 cubic metres. The discharge 
continues in the winter, as the icebergs set free prove, 
but at a slower rate. He observes also that the amount 
of glacier discharged as ice is far less than that which 
passes out as water beneath the glacier. The mean 

* H. Rink, The Inland Ice of Greenland, Scottish Geographical 
Magazine, vol. v, pp. 18-28. January, 1889 (from the Zeitschrift 
der Gesellschaft fiir Erdkunde zu Berlin, vol. xxiii, No. 5). 



264 



GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 



amount of mud discharged by the waters flowing from 
six glaciers he found to be, in July and August, 1875, 
727 grammes in one cubic metre of water (or in 100,000 
grammes very nearly)." * 




Fi« 49 —Explorations of the Greenland ice sheet, in the vicinity of the 
Frederikshaab (Glacier, by Jensen and Kornerup, 1878. The black part, 
ice ; white, land ; shaded, water ; J. N., Jensen's nunataks ; D. N., 
Dalager's nunataks ; white lines on the black, crevasses ; arrows, gla- 
cier flow. The two parallels of latitude shown are at 62° 30' and 63° ; 
and the two meridians designated, 49° and 50° W. longitude. (From 
Dana, after Jensen.) 



* J. D. Dana, in American Journal of Science, III, vol. xxiii, 
p. 365, May, 1882, from Holland's reports. 



EXPLORATIONS OF THE INLAND ICE. 



2G5 



In 1878, Lieutenant J. A. D. Jensen, with Mr. A. 
Kornerup as geologist, in the service of the Greenland 
survey, made an important expedition to the nunataks, 
which Dalager had seen more than a century before, as 
narrated on a foregoing page. Jensen's party started 
July 14th from a locality called Itivdlek (near latitude 
G2° 40'), on the north side of the Frederikshaab " ice 



<# 



s 



Mm 



-/ 



s 




/ 



,.ef 



/ -y 



V 



Fig. 50.— Enlarged map of Jensen's nunataks, with the currents and mo- 
raines of the surrounding ice sheet. (From Dana, after Jensen.) 



blink," and they travelled east-northeasterly about 47 
miles, the group of nunataks which they reached, since 
known as Jensen's nunataks, being near latitude 62° 50' 
and longitude 49° (Figs. 49 and 50). The ice was 
found to be much crevassed, so that travelling was diffi- 
cult and slow, and, moreover, the party suffered much 
from snow blindness. The nunataks, which Dalager had 



2(36 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

supposed to be mountains adjoining the east coast, but 
which are only about twenty miles from the nearest part 
of the ice border on the west, were reached on the 24th 
of July, and the party remained there a week, being de- 
tained by a snowstorm. 

The observations by Jensen and Kornerup on the 
relations of the currents of the ice sheet, and on the 
form of its surface, as influenced by the obstructions 
of the nunataks or projecting mountain tops, are stated 
by Dana, from the Danish reports of the Greenland 
survey, as follows : 

The heights above the sea of the four largest were severally, 
commencing to the north, 5,623 (g), 5,184 (i), 5,654 (&), and 5,580 
(to) feet. From these peaks, which stand like islands in the sea of 
ice, moraines of stones and earth (some of the stones 20 feet in 
their dimensions) extend for 1 to 2-J miles (to', to", to'", to"", Fig. 
05) ; and dust, by the aid of the storm winds, is drifted off for 
wide distribution over the glacier. The moraines, after a short 
outside existence, disappeared beneath the ice, the stones dropping 
down the crevasses that were from time to time opening (the ac- 
count says) as the glacier moved on. The varying direction of 
the moraines, and the eddies in the flowing ice, due to the ob- 
structing ridge (of which the nunataks are the peaks), which these 
directions indicate, are remarkably instructive. The arrows show 
the inferred direction of movement. The moraine to', 2-A- miles 
long, is made mostly of polished stones, which appear therefore to 
have travelled far, and not to be the debris of the nunataks. The 
to" and m" have no connection with any visible nunatak. At b 
is a lake 824 feet in diameter, and toward it the ice around slopes 
from a height of 4,900 feet to that of 4,120 feet on its borders. 
The glacier had a height at t, east of the nunataks. of 5,150 feet. 
The slope of the ice surface for the distance traversed averaged 
0° 49', or about 75 feet per mile (1 : 70), and it was evident that 
the movement of the glacier depended on this slope. Crevasses 
were numerous along the route transverse to the line of movement 
as well as longitudinal and radial (see fine lines along the route on 
Fig. 49) ; and fresh- water streams were common, and waterfalls 



EXPLORATIONS OF THE INLAND ICE. 267 

also. The largest of Jensen's nunataks consisted mostly of horn- 
blende schist in bold flexures, with mica schist and gneiss.* 

In 1880, Dr. N. 0. Hoist, the Swedish geologist, ex- 
amined portions of the margin of the Greenland ice 
sheet, his purpose being chiefly to study its varieties of 
drift, their modes of occurrence, and the processes of 
their deposition. He found extensive deposits of both 
englacial and subglacial drift, respectively characterized 
by angular and by glaciated stones and boulders. The 
largest accumulation of superglacial drift, which had 
been englacial, was observed on the southern edge of the 
lobe of the ice known as the Frederikshaab ice blink 
(latitude 62° 30'). The drift covering the ice surface 
here, as exposed by the ablation or superficial melting, 
was ascertained to extend along a distance of nearly 
twelve miles, and to reach half a mile to a mile and a 
half upon the ice. According to Hoist's Swedish report 
of his observations, summarized in translation by Dr. 
Josua Lindahl,f the quantity and upper limit of the 
superglacial drift at this locality are as follows : 

Its thickness is always greatest near land, but here it is often 
quite difficult to estimate its actual thickness, as it sometimes 
forms a compact covering, only in some fissures showing the un- 
derlying ice. This uneven thickness of the moraine cover offers 
to the ice a proportionally varying protection against the sun. It 
thus happens that the unequal thawing moulds the underlying 
surface of the ice into valleys and hills, the latter sometimes rising 
to a height of 50 feet above the adjacent valley, and being so 
densely covered with moraine, material that this completely hides 

* American Journal of Science, as before cited, p. 364. The 
plants collected by Kornerup on these nunataks. as here reported, 
have been noticed in a preceding chapter (p. 198). 

■f American Naturalist, vol. xxii. pp. 589-598 and 705-713, July 
and August. 1888. 



268 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

the ice core, which, however, often forms the main part of the 
hill. 

Farther in on the ice the moraine gradually thins out. At 
the locality just referred to the moraine cover, 3,000 feet from 
land, measured several inches in depth ; still the ice was seen in 
some bare spots. Beyond 4,000 feet from land the moraine 
formed no continuous cover, and at 8,300 feet it ceased entirely, 
with a perceptible limit against the clear ice. Only some scattered 
spots of sand and gravel were met with even a few hundred feet 
farther in on the ice, Dr. Hoist estimated the average thickness 
of the moraine taken across its entire width near its eastern end 
at one to two feet. The limit between the moraine cover and the 
pure ice is always located at a considerable though varying eleva- 
tion above the edge of the inland ice. In the instance of the 
above-mentioned moraine it varied between 200 feet and 500 feet. 

Terminal moraine ridges, in process of accumulation 
on the thinned border of the ice, were seen in several 
places, sometimes, as shown by the following quotation, 
consisting chiefly of subglacial drift, elsewhere of en- 
glacial drift : 

The border moraines north of the Arsuk Fiord ice river [lati- 
tude 61° 10'] are visible far out on the sea off lvigtut. Dr. Hoist, 
examined one that surrounds the southernmost strip of land at a 
distance from land of about 2,000 feet. It is not one continuous 
ridge, but consists of several disconnected portions arranged in a 
semicircle. One of these portions was about 200 feet wide and 
35 feet high. This moraine was mainly a ground moraine, prob- 
ably forced up by some elevation of the ledge under the ice. 

Another border moraine to the north of Kornok's northern 
ice river [near latitude 64° 40] was of a different character. The 
stones, at least at the surface, were greatly in preponderance over 
the gravel. They were angular and of varying size. The moraine 
showed some arcuations, but taken as a whole it was parallel to 
the land. In some exceptional instances it approached closely to 
the land, even so as to touch one of the projecting points, but gen- 
erally it was located some distance away from land. Its width 
was estimated at 100 feet, and its height at more than 50 feet; 
it should be remembered, however, that it might have had a core 



EXPLORATIONS OF THE INLAND ICE. 269 

of ice. Its length was about a mile and a half. South of this 
moraine, and farther in on the ice, were seen three more moraines, 
the greatest one extending about 1,000 feet in length. Two of 
them were parallel, one inside the other. 

These observations by Hoist are obviously analogous 
with those of Prof. I. C. Eussell, in 1890 and 1891, of 
the superglacial drift on the borders of the Malaspina 
ice sheet in Alaska, made superglacial by ablation of the 
ice, and bearing forest trees and luxuriant shrubby and 
herbaceous vegetation. Again, Hoist's notes of the oc- 
currence of the englacial drift up to definite heights of 
200 to 500 feet have been repeated for the glaciers and 
border of the Greenland ice sheet on the north side of 
Inglefield Gulf, near latitude 78°, by Prof. T. C. Cham- 
berlin, in 1894, who finds the englacial drift to extend 
to heights of 50 to 100 feet, and occasionally 150 feet, or 
about half of the height of the ice cliffs, being succeeded 
above by pure ice. 

Near the front of the ice sheet in southern Green- 
land, its contour, fluctuations in extent, and physical 
condition late in summer, are noted by Hoist as follows : 

The ice within a hundred feet from its borders invariably pre- 
sents a slope toward, the border, though generally not so steep as 
to render the ascent at all difficult. Farther in the slope is much 
less marked, though there appears to exist a general rising toward 
the east, while the surface everywhere presents vast undulations. 
The border of the ice appeared to have retreated quite recently in 
many places; in others it had evidently advanced. This seems to 
be the necessary effect of the varying amount of precipitation of 
snow or rain over the glacier basin, causing the glacier itself to 
vary in volume. The snow fallen in winter seems to remain much 
longer on the inland ice than on the land. ... On the surface the 
inland ice either presented the appearance of a compact mass of 
coarse crystallinic texture, reminding one of the grain of common 
rock candy, or else it is honeycombed by the solar heat and shows 
intersecting systems of parallel plates, apparently the remnants of 



270 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

large ice crystals, often several inches long, which have wasted 
away, only leaving the frame, as it were, on which they were built. 
These plates or tablets are highly mirroring, reflecting the solar 
rays in all directions, depending- on the position of each individual 
crystal. 

Nordenskjold's second expedition on the Greenland 
ice sheet was in 1883, starting July 4th from almost the 
same place (near latitude 68° 20') as in 1870, and advan- 
cing nearly due east in eighteen days about 73 miles on to 
the inland ice, to a height of about 4,950 feet. On July 
21st the main party, numbering eight, stopped on ac- 
count of the wetness and softness of the snow ; but two 
Lapps, travelling with the peculiar snowshoes called 
shi, advanced a probable distance of 45 or 50 miles 
farther, where the barometers indicated a height of 
5,850 feet. Land in the interior, free of ice and bearing 
vegetation, which Nordenskjold believed to exist, favoured 
bjfoehn winds (described on page 123) blowing inland 
over the mountainous borders of the country, and which 
he hoped to reach, was not found. Indeed, no nunatak, 
or projecting top of hill or mountain above the ice sur- 
face has been yet discovered more than forty or fifty 
miles inside the ice-covered area. 

A detailed narrative of this journey, from which the 
following extracts are taken, written by Baron Norden- 
skjold in letters to Mr. Oscar Dickson, the patron of the 
expedition, was given in Nature for November 1 and 
8, 1883, from which it was reprinted in America by 



During the entire journey we had great difficulty in finding 
suitable camping places. Thus, either the ice was so rough that 
there was not a square large enough for our tent, or else the sur- 



Vol. ii (December 7, 1883), pp. 732-738, with map. 



EXPLORATIONS OF THE INLAND ICE. 271 

face was so covered with cavities — which I will fully describe later 
on — that it was necessary to pitch it over some hundred smaller 
and a dozen larger round hollows one to three feet deep, filled 
with water, or else to raise it on a snowdrift so loose and impreg- 
nated with water that one's feet became wet even in the tent. 
An exception to this was the place where we camped on July 9th 
— viz., camping place No. 6. We encountered here a small ice 
plain surrounded by little rivers, and almost free from cavities, 
some thirty metres square. All the rivers flowed into a small 
lake near us, the water from which rushed with a loud roar 
through a short but strong current into an enormous abyss in the 
ice plateau. The river rushed close to our tent through a deep 
hollow, the sides of which were formed of magnificent perpendic- 
ular banks of ice. I had the spot photographed, but neither pic- 
ture nor description can give the faintest idea of the impressive 
scene — viz., a perfectly hewn aqueduct, as if cut by human hands 
in the finest marble, without flaw or blemish. Even the Lapps 
and the sailors stood on the bank lost in admiration. 

. . . On the 11th ... we proceeded alongside a big river, the 
southern bank of which formed a comparatively smooth ice plain, 
or, rather, ice road, with valleys, hills, cavities, or crevasses. . . . 
This plain was in several places beautifully coloured with " red " 
snow, especially along the banks of the river. It was the only 
spot on the whole inland ice where we found " red " snow or ice in 
any quantity. Even yellow-brown ice was seen in some places; 
but, on the other hand, ice coloured grayish-brown or grayish- 
green, partly by kryoconite and partly by organisms, was so com- 
mon that it generally gave colour to the ice landscape. 

Even on July 12th, between camps Nos. 7 and 8, we found 
blades of grass, leaves of the dwarf birch, willows, crackberry, and 
pyrola, with those of other Greenland flora, on the snow. At first 
we believed that they had been carried hither from the interior, 
but that this was not the case was demonstrated by the circum- 
stance that none was found east of camp No. 9. The only animals 
we discovered on the ice were, besides the few birds seen on our 
return journey, a small worm which lives on the various ice alga? 
and thus really belongs to the fauna of the inland ice, and two 
storm-driven birds from the shore. I had particularly requested 
each man to be on the lookout for stones on the ice ; but, after a 
journey of about half a kilometre from the ice border, no stone 
19 



272 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

was found on the surface, not even one as large as a pin's point. 
But the quantity of clay-dust (kryoconite) deposited on the ice 
was very great — I believe several hundred tons per square kilo- 
metre. 

, . . The 9th camp lay on the west side of an ice ridge close 
by a small, shallow lake, the water from which gathered, as usual, 
into a big river, which disappeared in an abyss with azure-coloured 
sides. From this spot we had a fine view of the country to the 
west, and saw even the sea shining forth between the lofty peaks 
on the coast ; but when we reached east of this ice ridge the 
country was seen no more, and the horizon was formed of ice 
only. 

Through an optical illusion, dependent on the mirage of the 
ice horizon, it appeared to us as if we were proceeding on the bot- 
tom of a shallow, saucer-shaped cavity. It was thus impossible 
to decide whether we walked up or down hill, and this formed a 
constant source of discussion between us, which could only be 
decided by the heaviness of the sledges in the harness. . . . 

The constant sunshine by day and night, reflected from every 
object around, soon began to affect our eyes— more so, perhaps, 
because we had neglected to adopt snow spectacles at the outset 
of our journey ; and snow blindness became manifest, with its at- 
tendant cutting pains. Fortunately, Dr. Berlin soon arrested this 
malady — which has brought so many journeys in the arctic regions 
to a close — by distributing snow spectacles, and by inoculating a 
solution of zinc vitriol in the blood-stained eyes. Another mal- 
ady, if not so dangerous, at all events quite as painful, was caused 
by the sunshine in the dry, transparent, and thin air on the skin 
of the face. It produced a vivid redness and a perspiration with 
large burning blisters, which, shrivelling up, caused the skin of 
the nose, ears, and cheeks to fall off in large patches. This was 
repeated several times, and the pain increased by the effect of the 
cold morning air on the newly formed skin. Any similar effect 
the sun has not in the tropics. With the exception of these com- 
plaints, none of us suffered any illness. 

On July 13th we covered thirteen, on the 14th ten, and on the 
15th fourteen kilometres (9th to 12th camps). At first the road 
gradually rose, and we then came to a plain which I, in error, be- 
lieved was the crest of the inland ice. The aneroids, however, 
showed that we were still ascending; thus, the 9th camp lies 753, 



EXPLORATIONS OF THE INLAND ICE. 273 

the 10th 877, the 11th 884, and the 12th 965 metres above the sea. 
Our road was still crossed by swift and strong rivers, but the ice 
became more smooth, while the kryoconite cavities became more 
and more troublesome. This was made more unpleasant by rain, 
which began to fall on the afternoon of July 13th, with a heavy 
wind from the southeast. It continued all the night, and the next 
morning turned into a snowstorm. We all got very wet, but 
consoled ourselves with the thought that the storm coming from 
the southeast argued well for an ice-free interior. When it cleared 
a little we strained our eyes to trace any mountains which would 
break the ice horizon around us, which everywhere was as level as 
that of the sea, The desire soon " to be there " was as fervent as 
that of the searchers of the El Dorado of yore ; and the sailors and 
the Lapps had no shadow of doubt as to the existence of an ice- 
free interior; and at noon, before reaching camp No. 12, every- 
body fancied he could distinguish mountains far away to the east. 
They appeared to remain perfectly stationary as the clouds drifted 
past them — a sure sign, we thought, of its not being a mass of 
clouds. They were scanned with telescopes, drawn, discussed, and 
at last saluted with a ringing cheer ; but we soon came to the 
conclusion that they were unfortunately no mountains, but merely 
the dark reflection of some lakes farther to the east in the ice 
desert. 

. . . The kryoconite cavities were perhaps more dangerous to 
our expedition than anything else we were exposed to. . . . These 
lie, with a diameter just large enough to hold the foot, as close to 
one another as the stumps of the trees in a felled forest, and it 
was therefore impossible not to stumble into them at every mo- 
ment ; which was the more annoying, as it happened just when the 
foot was stretched for a step forward, and the traveller was pre- 
cipitated to the ground with his foot fastened in a hole three feet 
in depth. The worst part of our journey was four days outward 
and three days of the return ; and it is not too much to say that 
each one of us, during these seven days, fell a hundred times 
(daily) into these cavities— viz., for all of us, seven thousand times. 
I am only surprised that no bones were broken. . . . One advan- 
tage the kryoconite cavities had, however, viz., of offering us the 
purest drinking water imaginable, of which we fully availed our- 
selves without the least bad consequences, in spite of our perspir- 
ing state. 



274 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

On July 16th we covered thirteen, on the 17th eighteen and a 
half, and on the 18th seventeen and a half kilometres. The coun- 
try, or, more correctly, the ice, now gradually rose from 965 to 1,213 
metres. The distances enumerated show that the ice became more 
smooth, but the road was still impeded by the kryoconite cavities, 
whereas the rivers, which even here were rich in water, became 
shallower but stronger, thus easier of crossing. Our road was, 
besides, often cut off by immense snow-covered crevasses, which, 
however, did not cause us much trouble. 

. . . During these days we passed several lakes, some of which 
had the appearance of not flowing away in the winter, as we found 
here large ice blocks several feet in diameter, screwed up on the 
shore ; which circumstance I could only explain by assuming that 
a large quantity of water still remained here when the pools about 
became covered with new ice. The lakes are mostly circular, and 
their shores formed a snow "bog," which was almost impassable 
with the heavy sledges. 

On July 19th we covered seventeen and a half, on the 20th 
sixteen and a half, on the 21st seven, and on the 22d seven and a 
half kilometres (loth to 18th camps). The ice rose between them 
from 1,213 to 1,492 metres. The distances enumerated fully show 
the nature of the ice. It was at first excellent, particularly in the 
morning, when the new snow was covered with a layer of hard ice ; 
but on the latter days we had great difficulty in proceeding, as a sleet 
fell with a southeast wind in the night between the 20th and 21st. 
The new snow, as well as that lying from the previous year, be- 
came a perfect snow bog, in which the sledges constantly stuck, 
so that it required at times four men to get them out. We all 
got wet, and had great difficulty in finding a spot on the ice dry 
enough to pitch the tent. On the 22d we had to pitch it in the 
wet snow, where the feet immediately became saturated on put- 
ting them outside the India-rubber mattresses.^ A little later on 
in the year, when the surface of the snow is again covered with 
ice, or earlier, before the thaw sets in. the surface would no 
doubt be excellent to journey on. ... It being utterly impossi- 
ble to get the sledges farther, I had no choice. I decided to turn 
back. 

I wished, however, to let the Lapps go forward some distance 
to the east to see the country as far as possible. ... At 2.30 a. m. 
on July 22d they started. The days we waited for them were 



EXPLORATIONS OF THE INLAND ICE. 275 

generally spent in the tent, as water surrounded us everywhere. 
The sky was covered with a thin veil of clouds, through which 
the sun shone warmly, at times even scorchingly. From time to 
time this veil of clouds, or haze, descended to the surface of the 
ice and hid the view over the expanse ; but it was, remarkably 
enough, not wet, but dry — yes, so dry that our wet clothes abso- 
lutely dried in it. . . . 

On the 24th, after an absence of fifty-seven hours, the Lapps 
returned. ... As to the run, Lars rendered the following report : 
When they had reached thirty miles from the camp, no more 
water could be found. Farther on, the ice became perfectly 
smooth. The thermometer registered —5° C. It was very easy 
to proceed on the skidor. At the point of return the snow was 
level, and packed by the wind. There was no trace of land. They 
only saw before them a smooth ice covered by fine and hard snow. 
The composition of the surface was this : first, four feet of loose 
snow, then granular ice, and at last an open space large enough 
to hold an outstretched hand. It was surrounded by angular bits 
of ice (crystals). The inland ice was formed in terraces, thus : 
first a hill, then a level, again another hill, and so on. The 
Lapps had slept for four hours, from twelve, midnight, on July 
23d, in a hollow dug in the snow, while a terrific storm blew. 
They had till then been awake fifty-three hours. ... On the re- 
turn journey . . . two ravens were seen ; they came from the 
north, and returned in the same direction. . . . 

On July 25th we began the return journey. It was high time, 
as the weather now became very bad, and it was with great diffi- 
culty we proceeded in the hazy air between the number of cre- 
vasses. The cold, after the sun sank below the horizon at night, 
also became very great, and on the morning of July 27th the glass 
fell to —11° C. The rivers now impeded us but little, as they 
were to a great extent dried up. The ice-knolls had decreased 
considerably in size, too, and lay more apart ; but the glacial 
crevasses had greatly expanded, and were more dangerous, being 
covered with snow. Even the cavities and the glacial wells, of 
which many undoubtedly leave a veritable testimony of their 
existence behind them in the shape of corresponding hollows in 
the rock beneath, had expanded and increased in number. On a 
few occasions on the return journey we saw flocks of birds, most 
probably waterfowl, which were returning from the north. 



27G GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

Robert E. Peary, in June and July, 1886, accom- 
panied by Christian Maigaard, made the next important 
exploration of the inland ice, going east from the head 
of Pakitsok Fiord on the northeast part of Disco Bay, in 
latitude 69° 30'. An account of this expedition, which 
was a reconnoissance, with the hope of the more ex- 
tended journey made six years later, is given by Peary 
in the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, 
New York.* 

The explorers advanced to a distance of about 100 
miles from the edge of the ice, attaining an altitude of 
about 7,500 feet. Describing the first ten miles of the 
ice, Peary writes : " In detail, the surface was, as a rule, 
roughly granular in texture, affording firm, sure foot- 
ing, interrupted here and there by crevasses, some open, 
and some covered with a snow arch by patches of soft, 
deep snow in the depressions between the hummocks, 
and by patches of hard ice cut by nearly parallel fur- 
rows, as if made by a huge plough." The camp at the 
end of their advance was in a shallow basin of the neve 
of snow which covers all the inner portion of the ice 
sheet, there having, to use Peary's words, " the con- 
sistency of fine granulated sugar as far down as I could 
force my alpenstock (some six feet)." The margin and 
the interior of the ice sheet are characterized by Peary 
as follows : 

Wherever the ice projects down a valley in. a long tongue or 
stream the edges contract and shrink away from the warmer 
rocks on each side, leaving a deep canon between, usually occu- 
pied by a glacier stream. . . . Higher up along the unbroken 
portions of the dam [i. e., inclosing mountains], where the rocks 
have a southern exposure or rise much above the ice, there is apt 
to be a deep canon between the ice and the rocks, the ice-face 

* Vol. xix (September 30, 1887), pp. 261-289. 



EXPLORATIONS OP THE INLAND ICE. 277 

sometimes 60 feet high, pure pale green, and flinty. In another 
place the ice-face may be so striated and discoloured as to be a 
precise counterpart of the rock opposite, looking as if torn from 
it by some convulsion. The bottom of the canon is almost inva- 
riably occupied by water. . . . Still farther up, at the very crest 
of the dam, the ice lies smoothly against the rocks. 

As to the features of the interior beyond the coast line, the 
surface of the ice blink near the margin is a succession of rounded 
hummocks, steepest and highest on their landward sides, which 
are sometimes precipitous. Farther in, these hummocks merge 
into long, flat swells, which in turn decrease in height toward 
the interior, until at last a flat, gently rising plain is reached, 
which doubtless becomes ultimately level. 

In concluding the narrative of this journey, after 
describing the needful outfit, Peary remarked : " To a 
small party thus equipped, and possessed of the right 
mettle, the deep, dry, unchanging snow of the interior 
... is an imperial highway, over which a direct course 
can be taken to the east coast." It was also suggested 
that the unexplored northern shore lines of Greenland 
may be most readily mapped by expeditions across the 
high inland ice. 

Two years later, in August and September, 1888, 
Dr. Fridtjof Hansen, with five companions, crossed this 
ice sheet from east to west between latitude 64° 10' and 
64° 45', being the first to learn the contour and slopes 
of an entire profile over the inland ice. The width of 
the ice there is about 275 miles, extending into the 
ocean on the east, but terminating on the west about 
14 miles from the head of Ameralik Fiord, and 70 
miles from the outer coast line. For the first 15 miles 
in the ascent from the east, rising to the altitude of 
1,000 metres, or 3,280 feet, the average gradient was 
nearly 220 feet per mile. In the next 35 miles an alti- 
tude of 2,000 metres, or 6,560 feet, was reached ; and 



278 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

the average gradient in this distance, between 15 and 
50 miles from the margin of the ice, was thus about 94 
feet per mile, or a slope very slightly exceeding one 
degree. The highest part of the ice sheet, about 112 
miles from the point of starting, was found to have an 
altitude of 2,718 metres, or about 8,920 feet. Its as- 
cending slope, therefore, in the distance from 50 to 112 
miles, was about 38 feet per mile. Thence descending- 
westward, the gradients are less steep, averaging about 
25 feet per mile for nearly 100 miles to the altitude of 
2,000 metres, about 63 feet per mile for the next 52 
miles of distance and 1,000 metres of descent, and 
about 125 feet per mile for the lower western border of 
the ice. 

The narrative of this expedition is most admirably 
told by Dr. Hansen in two finely-illustrated volumes, en- 
titled The First Crossing of Greenland. The scientific 
results attained are presented in an appendix of the 
second volume, from which the following extracts are 
quoted : 

As to the superficial aspect of the inland ice, I may say, in the 
first place, that of crevasses we found a surprisingly small num- 
ber in the course of our journey. On the east side they occurred 
only in the first seven or eight miles ; on the west side we came 
across the first fissure at some twenty-five miles from the margin 
of the ice. In the interior there was no trace of them. 

Of surface rivers we found practically none. Some may be 
inclined to think that this was due to the lateness of the season, 
though this objection has little force, seeing that the middle of 
August, when we were on the east side, is not late in the season 
as far as regards the melting of the snow ; and, furthermore, that 
even if the rivers had disappeared themselves on the west coast, 
we should have seen traces of their channels. None such did we 
see in the interior at all, and the first we observed were not more 
than fifteen or twenty miles distant from the western edge. It is 
possible, also, that there were minor brooks on the surface in the 



EXPLORATIONS OF THE INLAND ICE. 279 

first ten miles from the eastern side. Except for these small 
water courses near the two coasts, I may say positively that there 
are no rivers at any time of the year on that part of the inland ice 
over which we passed. 

... At no great distance from the east coast the surface of 
dry snow begins, on which the sun has no other effect than to 
form a thin crust of ice. The whole of the surface of the interior 
is precisely the same. . . . 

Of moraine debris or erratic blocks we met with none upon the 
ice, with the exception of the last little slope when we left it for 
good on the western side, or no more than a hundred yards from 
the extreme edge. . . . 

. . . Some of the temperatures which we experienced were far 
lower than the established meteorological laws could have led us 
to expect. . . . The temperature on certain nights, September 
12th and 14th, probably fell, according to the calculations of 
Professor Mohn, to —45° C. (—49° F.), while the mean tempera- 
ture of certain days, September 11th to 16th, when we were about 
in the middle of the country, or a little to the west of the highest 
ridge, varied from -30° C. to -34° C. (-22 u to -29° P.). This 
is at least 20° C. (36° F.) lower than any one would have been 
justified in expecting, if he had based his calculations on ac- 
cepted laws, taking for his data elevation above and distance 
from the sea, as well as the mean temperature of the neighbour- 
ing coasts. 

... In the forty days which we spent on the ice there were 
sixteen of either snow or rain. On four days only did we have 
rain, when we were weather-bound in the tent near the east coast, 
and on one day near the west coast we had hail ; on the rest it 
was always snow, which in the interior took the form of fine 
" frost snow," or needles of ice. This fell almost daily out of a 
half-transparent mist, through which we could often see the sun, 
together with halos and mock suns. 

The severe temperatures experienced by Xansen and 
his party were in remarkable contrast with the prevail- 
ingly warm weather and abundant snow-melting which 
Nordenskjold encountered somewhat earlier in the sum- 
mer five years previously, at a distance of only about 



280 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

three hundred miles farther north. The diversity of 
average character of seasons in different years, which is 
often observed in temperate latitudes of the United 
States and Europe, appears also to be equally exhibited 
in Greenland. We can not doubt that during the 
middle three or four weeks of the summer in 1883 the 
surface of the great neve covering the Greenland ice 
sheet was rapidly thawing, with many resulting super- 
glacial streams, upon the area traversed by Xansen ; but 
such warm and fast melting weather seems probably to 
be exceptional, occurring perhaps only once in several 
years, like the times of severe drought which rarely 
come, as one in ten or twenty years, more or less, to the 
eastern United States, or like our occasional prolonged 
thaws in the middle of the winters. 

The most extensive journey of exploration thus far 
accomplished on the Greenland ice sheet was by Lieuten- 
ant Robert E. Peary and. Eivind Astrup in 1892. The 
narrative of this expedition, sailing from New York, June 
6, 1891, wintering on the south shore of McCormick 
Bay, at the northern side of the entrance of Inglefield 
Gulf, near latitude 77° 40', and performing a sledge 
journey of about thirteen hundred miles, including 
both the advance and return, on the inland ice of north- 
western Greenland, has been well told by Peary and 
others of his party, in the Bulletin of the American 
Geographical Society,* in a volume entitled In Arctic 
Seas,f and especially in My Arctic Journal, by Mrs. 

*Vol. xxiii, pp. 444-454, September 30, 1891; vol. xxiv, pp. 
470-473 and 536-558 (with maps and views from photographs), 
September 30 and December 31, 1892. 

f In Arctic Seas : The Voyage of the Kite with the Peary Ex- 
pedition, by Robert N. Keely, Jr., M. D., and G. G. Davis, A. M., 
M. D.; vii, 524 pages, 1892. 



EXPLORATIONS OF THE INLAND ICE. 281 

Peary,* who accompanied her husband to McCormick 
Bay and spent a year there. 

Peary, with three comrades, began the journey on 
the ice sheet May 3d ; but the next two weeks were . 
employed in transporting their supplies up the steep 
and crevassed ice border, and over the rough upward 
slope for the first fifteen miles, to the beginning of the 
vast interior snow plain. During this time, and again 
within the following week, they were hindered by severe 
snowstorms, with " the constant violent wind rushing 
down from the interior to the shore," such as Hayes 
had experienced there in 18 GO ; but from the 24th of 
May, when two of the party returned to the station at 
McCormick Bay, no other violent storms occurred dur^ 
ing the northward march. Taking a northeastward 
course past the heads of the depressions leading to the 
Humboldt Glacier, Petermann Fiord, and the Sherard 
Osborne Fiord, Peary and his young Norwegian com- 
panion, Astrup, reached the vicinity of the northern 
end of the ice sheet June 27th, where, near latitude 82° 
and longitude 40°, they saw mountainous but lower 
land and a fiord in front of them, on account of which 
they changed their course to the east and southeast. 
On July 1st they set out across the land, and after 
" four days of the hardest travelling, over sharp stones 
of all sizes, through drifts of snow and across rushing 
torrents," reached a headland which was named Navy 
Cliff, whence they looked down about thirty-five hundred 
feet upon Independence Bay, so named from its dis- 



* My Arctic Journal : A Year among Icefields and Eskimos, 
by Josephine Diebitsch-Peary ; with an Account of The Great 
White Journey across Greenland, by Robert E. Peary, Civil En- 
gineer, United States Navy ; 240 pages, 1893. 



282 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

covery on July 4th. A large glacier, discharging from 
the inland ice, flows from the south into this bay, near 
latitude 81° 37' and longitude 34°. Peary's description 
of this northeastern border of Greenland, and of his 
return journey, is as follows : 

This land, red and brown in colour, and almost entirely free 
of snow, is covered with glacial debris and sharp stones of all 
sizes. Flowers, insects, and musk oxen are abundant. We shot 
five musk oxen and a large number of birds. Traces of foxes, 
hares, ptarmigan, and possibly wolves, were seen. The surface of 
the bay was covered with winter's still unbroken ice, prisoning 
the icebergs from the great glacier. 

On July 9th we started on the return, taking a course more in- 
land. In seven days we were struggling through the soft snow, 
and wrapped in the snow-clouds of the great interior plateau, 
over eight thousand feet above the sea level. We remained in 
the clouds some fourteen days, when we descended from them 
east of the Humboldt Glacier. Then, with dogs and ourselves 
trained down to hard pan, we covered over thirty miles per day 
for seven days, till our eyes were gladdened by the deep green, 
iceberg-dotted waters of McCormick Bay. 

On the last day, as I came over the summit of the great ice 
dome lying between the border of the true inland ice and the 
head of the bay, I saw moving figures a mile or two ahead, on the 
next ice dome. From that party burst almost instantly a cheer, 
and it was not long before I was clasping hands with Prof. Heil- 
prin and his men, who were out on a reconnoissance preparatory 
to going in toward Humboldt Glacier to meet me.* 

The relief expedition sent out by the Philadelphia 
Academy of Natural Sciences, was brought by the same 
steamer, the Kite, which had carried Peary to Greenland 
the year before, and was under the direction, as before, 
of Prof. Angelo Heilprin.f Returning southward, the 

* Bulletin, American Geographical Society, vol. xxiv, pp. 472, 
473. 

f The Arctic Problem, and Narrative of the Peary Relief Ex- 



EXPLORATIONS OP THE INLAND ICE. 283 

Kite, bearing Peary and his party, left their station, 
called KedclirTe House, August 24th, and reached the 
Waigat passage, north of Disco Island, August 29th; 
St. John's, Newfoundland, September 11th ; and Phil- 
adelphia, September 24th. 

Describing the ice sheet whose northwestern part 
had been thus explored, Peary writes : 

The terms " inland ice " and " great interior frozen sea," two 
of the more common names by which the region traversed by us 
is generally known, both suggest to the majority of people erro- 
neous ideas. In the first place, the surface is not ice, but merely 
a compacted snow. The term " sea " is also a misnomer, in so far 
as it suggests the idea of a sometime expanse of water subsequently 
frozen over. The only justification for the term is the unbroken 
and apparently infinite horizon which bounds the vision of the 
traveller upon its surface. Elevated as the entire region is to a 
height of from four thousand to nine thousand feet above the sea 
level, the towering mountains of the coast, which would be visible 
to the sailor at a distance of sixty to eighty miles, disappear 
beneath the landward convexity of the ice cap by the time the 
traveller has penetrated fifteen or twenty miles into the interior, 
and then he may travel for days and weeks with no break what- 
ever in the continuity of the sharp, steel-blue line of the horizon. 

The sea has its days of towering, angry waves, of laughing, glis- 
tening white-caps, of mirrorlike calm. The " frozen sea " is always 
the same — motionless, petrified. Around its white shield the sun 
circles for months in succession, never hiding his face except in 
storms. Once a month the pale full moon climbs above the oppo- 
site horizon, and circles with him for eight or ten days. 

. Sometimes, though rarely, cloud shadows drift across the white 
expanse, but usually the cloud phenomena are the heavy prophe- 
cies or actualities of furious storms veiling the entire sky ; at 
other times they are merely the shadows of dainty, transparent 
cirrus feathers. In clearest weather the solitary traveller upon 
this white Sahara sees but three things outside of and beyond 

pedition of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, by 
Angelo Heilprin ; 165 pages (Contemporary Publishing Co., 1S93). 



284 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

himself — the unbroken white expanse of the snow, the unbroken 
blue expanse of the sky, and the sun. In cloudy weather all three 
of these may disappear. 

Many a time I have found myself in cloudy weather travelling 
in gray space. Not only was there no object to be seen, but in 
the entire sphere of vision there was no difference in intensity of 
light. My feet and snowshoes were sharp and clear as silhouettes, 
and I was sensible of contact with the snow at every step ; yet, 
as far as my eyes gave me evidence to the contrary, I was walking 
upon nothing. The space between my snowshoes was as light as 
the zenith. The opaque light which filled the sphere of vision 
might come from below as well as above. A curious mental as 
well as physical strain resulted from this blindness with wide- 
open eyes, and sometimes we were obliged to stop and await a 
change. 

The wind is always blowing on the great ice cap, sometimes 
with greater, sometimes with less violence, but the air is never 
quiet. When the velocity of the wind increases beyond a certain 
point it scoops up the loose snow, and the surface of the inland 
ice disappears beneath a hissing white torrent of blinding drift. 
The thickness of this drift may be anywhere from six inches to 
thirty or even fifty feet, dependent upon the consistency of the 
snow. When the depth of the drift is not in excess of the height 
of the knee, its surface is as tangible and almost as sharply de- 
fined as that of a sheet of water, and its incessant dizzy rush and 
strident sibilation become, when long continued, as maddening 
as the drop, drop, drop, of water on the head in the old torture 
rooms. 

... As a result of my study of the Eskimo clothing and its 
use, I adopted it. . . . The deerskin coat, with the trousers, foot- 
gear, and undershirt, weighed eleven and one fourth pounds, or 
about the same as an ordinary winter business suit, including 
shoes, underwear, etc., but not the overcoat. In this costume, 
with the fur inside and the drawstrings at waist, wrists, knees, and 
face pulled tight, I have seated myself upon the great ice cap, 
four thousand feet above the sea. with the thermometer at —38°, 
the wind blowing so that 1 could scarcely stand against it, and 
with back to the wind have eaten my lunch leisurely and in com- 
fort ; then, stretching myself at full length for a few moments, 
have listened to the fierce hiss of the snow driving past me with 



EXPLORATIONS OF THE INLAND ICE. 285 

the same pleasurable sensation that, seated beside the glowing 
grate, we listen to the roar of the rain upon the roof. 

Our sleeping-bags, also of the winter coat of the deer, with the 
fur inside, were, I think, the lightest and warmest ever used. In 
my own bag, weighing ten and one fourth pounds, I have slept 
comfortably out upon the open snow, with no shelter whatever, 
and the thermometer at —41°, wearing inside the bag only under- 
garments. During the inland-ice journey, throughout which the 
temperature was never more than a degree or two below zero, our 
sleeping-bags were discarded, our fur clothing being ample pro- 
tection for us when asleep, even though I carried no tent.* 

Iii the summer of 1893, Lieutenant Garde, of the 
Danish Navy, made an expedition upon the inland ice, 
starting from the glacier of Sermilsialik, latitude 61°, on 
the eastern side of Greenland. The distance travelled 
was 300 kilometres (186 miles), occupying thirteen days, 
and the highest elevation attained was 7,000 feet. The 
marches were at night, as the neve was then in better 
condition than during the warmer claytime.f 

Again in 1893, Lieutenant and Mrs. Peary, with a 
party for further exploration of the ice sheet and north- 
ern shores of Greenland, sailed in the Falcon from Port- 
land, Me., July 8th, and from St. John's on the 14th, 
reaching Bowdoin Bay, on the north side of Inglefield 
Gulf, August 3d. The narrative of this voyage to their 
new winter station, named Anniversary Lodge, at the 
head of Bowdoin Bay, near latitude 77° 40', longitude 
70°, is interestingly told by Mrs. Peary in the closing 
chapter of My Arctic Journal. 



* The Great White Journey, My Arctic Journal, pp. 231-233, 
239, 240. 

f Revue de Geographie, September, 1893, cited by Bulletin of 
the American Geographical Society, vol. xxv, p. 439, September 
30, 1893. 



2S6 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

From this station, very early in the spring of 1894, 
on the 6th day of March, Peary started, with the plan 
of travelling northeast over the Greenland ice sheet a 
distance of about 650 miles to Independence Bay, the 
limit of his previous expedition, thence intending to 
send one party south, while he, with one or more assist- 
ants, would explore the country farther north. On set- 
ting out, the party comprised eight men, twelve sledges, 
and ninety dogs. The time, however, proved to be 
much too early, on account of the severity of weather on 
the high ice sheet at the very beginning of the circum- 
polar half year of constant daylight. After a journey 
of two weeks on the inland ice, reaching an altitude of 
about 5,000 feet, the party experienced, on March 20th 
to the 23d, an " equinoctial storm " of blinding snow, 
fierce wind, and very low temperature, probably un- 
equalled in the experience of any former arctic expedi- 
tion. The self-recording anemometer showed that the 
wind during thirty-four hours had an average velocity 
of forty-eight miles an hour; and the thermograph 
showed an average temperature of 50° F. below zero. 
Exceedingly cold weather and other severe storms fol- 
lowed, the temperature being mostly 40° to 50° below 
zero, with almost continual wind. Some of the men 
had their feet and hands frozen ; the dogs, enduring in 
the snow outside the tents the full hardships of the 
storms, were in a few instances frozen to death, and the 
others were attacked by a fatal disease;* and some of 
the sledges were broken in being drawn over the sharply 
ridged snowdrifts. The party was soon diminished to 
half its original number by the return of frost-bitten 
and sick men, until the expedition, after having ad- 



* Called piblockto, before noticed on page 240. 



EXPLORATIONS OF THE INLAND ICE. 287 

vanced in total about 125 miles, was reluctantly aban- 
doned by Peary on April 10th, that he might save a 
sufficient reserve of his provisions, sledges, and dogs for 
another attempt the next year. The summer was spent 
in explorations of the Greenland coast, glaciers, and bor- 
der of the ice sheet, in the neighbourhood of the winter 
station and south to Melville Bay.* 

In August, 1894, the Falcon again came from New- 
foundland to Inglefield Gulf, as a relief expedition to 
bring back Peary and his party ; but the intrepid ex- 
plorer, with two comrades, remained in Greenland for 
another year, while Mrs. Peary and the others of the 
party returned. It was Peary's hope, during the sum- 
mer of 1895, to succeed in crossing the ice sheet and to 
explore more fully the northeastern and northern coast. 
The very severe storms encountered in the early spring 
indicate that travel on either the ice sheet of Greenland 
or that of the antarctic continent, where a distance of 
850 miles lies between the most southern indentation of 
the shore line and the pole, will be practicable only dur- 
ing a few months in the middle and later parts of the 
circumpolar summers. 

The geologist of the Peary relief party of 1894, sail- 
ing in the Falcon, was Prof. T. C. Chamberlin, whose 
principal purpose was to study the plane of contact of 
the ice sheet and land surface, the drainage of the wast- 
ing ice margin, and all possible phases of glacial deposi- 
tion. This party, under the command of Henry G. 
Bryant, Secretary of the Geographical Club of Philadel- 
phia, and well known for his exploration of the Grand 
River in Labrador, left Brooklvn, N". Y., June 20th, and 



* Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, vol. xxvi, pp. 
397-406, September 30, 1894. 
20 



288 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

St. John's July 7th. Greenland was first sighted July 
12th, and its coast was followed northward more than 
1,000 miles to Peary's winter station on Inglefield Gulf. 
A landing was made on Disco Island July 16th, where 
three glaciers were examined. This island was also 
visited on the return of the expedition, allowing the 
same glaciers to be seen again forty-eight clays later. 
Much ice was encountered in Melville Bay, so that the 
Falcon was unable to make the middle passage, but the 
inner passage was traversed without serious delay, reach- 
ing Cape York July 23d. The next day was given to a 
search on the Carey Islands for further information re- 
garding the lost Swedish naturalists, Bjorling and Kal- 
stenius, wrecked there two years before, of whose party 
numerous relics were found. Prof. Chamberlin writes : 

On the morning of July 25th the Falcon entered Whale Sound, 
the mouth of Inglefield Gulf, our destination, but found it covered 
with ice still too strong to permit the forcing of a passage. This 
was the day fixed for our arrival in the prospectus of the expedi- 
tion, and had the gulf been open we would have reached Peary's 
headquarters on schedule time. The trip up to this time had been 
nearly ideal from the standpoint of one who wished to see the 
realities of the arctic region, without suffering much from them. 
We had some sharp battling with the ice pack, some groping in 
the fog, were beset and nipped with moving floes, but were not 
very seriously threatened or long delayed. We saw just enough 
of the vicissitudes of the region to realize what they might be- 
come in their full force, and just enough of the dangers to give 
us a wholesome respect for them. 

The vessel being unable at once to reach Peary's headquarters, 
work was begun upon the glaciers immediately at hand, and 
dredging was commenced with excellent results. Communication 
was soon established over the gulf ice with headquarters, and 
Lieutenant Peary and several of his party visited the Falcon. On 
August 5th I returned with Lieutenant Peary to his headquarters 
by his invitation, and remained his guest until nearly the time for 
our return. Meanwhile the Falcon and the rest of the auxiliary 



EXPLORATIONS OP THE INLAND ICE. 289 

party, and several of the Peary party, went to Ellesmere Land 
and Jones Sound for geographic study and for dredging. They 
found the ice unusually extensive and solid, and their results were 
necessarily limited. On returning, the Falcon forced her way 
with difficulty through the ice to the Peary headquarters, arriv- 
ing August 20th. On the 26th the return was begun. A short 
call was made at Cape York, and stoppages of two days each at 
Godhavn and Godthaab, the two capitals of Greenland. St. 
John's was reached without notable incident on September 15th, 
and Philadelphia on the 25th. 

Peary's headquarters are surrounded by glaciers, some of which 
are tongues of the great inland ice, while some come from local 
ice caps ; some reach the sea level and give birth to icebergs, while 
some terminate inland. Some have gentle declines and deploy on 
open ground, while others have steep gradients and crowd through 
narrow valleys. The great inland ice cap is less than three miles 
distant. The facilities for glacial study are unsurpassed.* 

In his address as President of the Geological Society 
of America, at its Baltimore meeting, December 28, 
1894, Prof. Chamberlin gave a summary of his observa- 
tions on the glaciers and ice sheet in the Inglefield Gulf 
region, of which the following is an abstract, from notes 
taken during the address : 

The glaciers in the vicinity of Bowdoin Bay, where terminat- 
ing on the land, commonly have very steep, often nearly vertical 
and sometimes overhanging fronts to heights of one hundred to two 
hundred feet or more. This remarkable contrast with the glaciers 
of more southern latitudes is ascribed to peripheral melting by 
reflection of the oblique solar rays from the warm adjoining 
ground. It seems also to be secondarily dependent on the very 
slow rate of the glacial motion, which is found by Peary to be 
usually scarcely measurable, while the maximum daily rate ob- 
served in exceptionally fast-flowing glaciers in the midsummer is 
from two and a half to four feet. 

Engiacial drift is plentifully seen in many of the frontal ice 

* Glacialists' Magazine, vol. ii, pp. 69, 70, November, 1894. 



290 



GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 



cliffs to heights of fifty to one hundred feet, and occasionally a 
hundred and fifty feet, or about half of their total height. It is 
quite unequally distributed, being commonly gathered, especially 



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* 


• ' ' 






f • i : 


'"« * 




■ i 




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m *'? 


1 














" 






•' 


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■If ' > 






.23 ° 



■v&:~'^' 



at considerable heights, into layers of an inch to a foot or more, 
where the ice contains much rock detritus, interbedded with 
thicker layers of nearly pure ice. Again, masses of drift several 
feet in extent, analogous with till, are rarely enveloped in the ice, 



EXPLORATIONS OP THE INLAND ICE. 291 

which, above and beneath these masses and the similarly inclosed 
boulders, has an upwardly and downwardly arching lamination. 

Differential onward flow of the ice, its upper and middle por- 
tions outstripping those next beneath, has been the chief means of 
giving to the terminal ice-cliff sections a very distinctly and sur- 
prisingly laminated structure. Sometimes the differential move- 
ment has carried part of a previously plane zone forward so much 
faster than that which was before it as to bend the clearly lami- 
nated zone into sigmoid folds, and even to produce sharply de- 
fined overthrust faults. In this way the en glacial boulders and 
small rock fragments are frequently much worn and striated. 

The inclusion of the englacial drift is attributed to abrasion 
from knobs and ridges projecting up into the overriding ice, rather 
than to any upwardly flowing basal currents. It is observed, 
however, that the front of the ice sometimes rides upward over its 
own marginal accumulations of drift ; indeed, wherever onward 
movement of the ice boundary is taking place this seems more 
frequent than any glacial erosion or pushing forward of the mo- 
raine. Strong winds blow prevailingly down the slope of the in- 
land ice, often drifting snow over the frontal glacier cliffs, and 
even these snowdrifts are sufficient in some places to cause the 
ice to flow upward, or to be laterally deflected. 

In some cases the morainic hillocks, seen in process of forma- 
tion beneath the steep or vertical edge of the ice, have the out- 
lines of miniature drumlins, with the laminated glacier curving 
upward quite conformably over them. No eskers or kames were 
observed. The drainage from the glacial melting is mostly by 
subaerial lateral streams, along the inner side of the adjoining 
moraines ; rarely it is by central subglacial streams. 

Only very scanty drift is spread over the country outside the 
ice sheet and glaciers ; and the largest glacio-fluvial delta fans are 
about half a mile in extent. Most of the glaciers have been long 
stationary ; a few are retreating ; others are advancing. 

Near the east side of Bowdoin Bay a driftless area, having a 
diameter of three or four miles, shows deep decomposition of its 
rock, which is hornblenclic gneiss. Its altitude is less than that 
of neighbouring glaciers, and it is accepted, with the jagged and 
unglaciated outlines of the upper part of many of the coastal 
mountains from Capes Farewell and Desolation north to Ingle- 
field Gulf (a distance of twelve hundred miles), as decisive evi- 



292 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

dence that there has never been a complete envelopment of the 
western border of Greenland by land ice. 

Dalrymple Island, close to the Greenland coast, near longitude 




70° and latitude 76° 30', also consists of decomposing hornblendic 
gneiss, with no drift, and with mountain forms due solely to sub- 
aerial erosion. Fifty miles northwestward, however, the Carey 



EXPLORATIONS OF THE INLAND ICE. 293 

Islands, which are mountains rising from a large expanse of the 
surrounding northern part of Baffin Bay, have been glaciated by 
an ice sheet flowing over them from the north — that is, from 
Grinnell Land and Smith Sound. In the course of this ice sheet, 
at a distance of fifty miles north of the Carey Islands, the sea has 
a depth of two hundred and twenty fathoms. 

Inquiring for the physical causes and explanation of glacial 
motion, Prof. Chamberlin thinks the theory of Hugi, Grad, Forel, 
and others, which refers the movement, under the influences of 
the solar heat and gravity, to the enlargement and long persist- 
ence of the granules originating in the neve, to be more supported 
by his observations and studies than the now commonly accepted 
theory of J. D. Forbes, which regards the ice as a viscously flow- 
ing though brittle solid.* 

Iii the present year, 1895, with his two companions, 
Peary traversed the Greenland ice sheet npon nearly the 
same course as three years before, from Anniversary 
Lodge, at the head of Bowdoin Bay, which was left 
April 1st, to Independence Bay. Musk oxen were 
found there, as in the previous expedition, and several 
were shot, affording an important addition to the scanty 
provisions of the party, since, with only one exception, 
the caches made at the end of the attempted journey in 
March and April, 1894, had become buried in the snow 
and could not be found. The caches had indeed been 
searched for in vain by an expedition during the inter- 
vening September, for the purpose of raising them from 
the summer snow and again marking their locations. 

* The American Geologist, vol. xv, pp. 197. 198. March, 1893. 
This address is published in the Bulletin of the Geological Society 
of America, vol. vi, pp. 199-220, with eight plates. Upon a wider 
range than could be given in this address, the same studies of the 
Greenland glaciers and ice sheet are being presented very fully by 
Prof. Chamberlin in a series of articles in the Journal of Geology, 
from the number for October-November, 1894, onward. 



294: 



GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 



Great hardships were encountered in this journey, and 
of the forty-one dogs, drawing three sledges, with which 




the advance from the vicinity of the lost caches began, 
only eleven survived to reach the northern border of the 
ice sheet. Peary's hoped-for opportunity to explore the 



EXPLORATIONS OF THE INLAND ICE. 295 

northeastern coast in the neighbourhood of Independ- 
ence Bay was partially attained during a prolonged 
hunt for musk oxen ; but the exhaustion of one of his 
comrades, and the scarcity of their food, which would 
evidently be wholly needed for the homeward journey, 
compelled them soon to turn back. 

The return was begun with nine dogs and ended 
with only one, reaching Auniversary Lodge June 25th. 
For more than two weeks the three men had subsisted 
on one meal a day, and they had no food during the last 
march of twenty-one miles. 

The relief expedition of this year, in the steamer 
Kite, though passing unimpeded through the usually 
ice-covered Melville Bay, was unable on account of floe, 
ice to enter Bowdoin Bay, but reached McOormick Bay, 
separated from the preceding by the Redcliff Peninsula. 
Members of the relief party, walking to Anniversary 
Lodge, found Peary and his comrades on August 3d, 
and the homeward voyage to St. John's, Newfoundland, 
was completed September 21st. 

Prof. R. D. Salisbury in this relief expedition, as 
Prof. Chamberlin in that of the previous year, made ex- 
tensive observations of the ice cap and glaciers of Red- 
cliff Peninsula and of the western coast of Greenland, 
thence southward to Disco Island and the Jakobshavn 
glacier. Lieutenant Peary also, in geographic explora- 
tion of the Greenland coast from Cape York northward 
150 miles in latitude to Cape Alexander, had accurately 
mapped about a hundred glaciers, and had taken a long 
series of observations of the rate of motion of one of 
the most active glaciers in the Inglefield Gulf region. 

It should be added that the Kite brought back from 
Greenland a very valuable zoological collection, which 
was made principally by Prof. L. L. Dyche, including 



296 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

about 4,000 specimens of birds and their eggs, narwhals, 
seals, polar bears, and other animals. Lastly, two large 
masses of iron, one weighing about three tons, were ob- 
tained from the coast of Melville Bay. These are 
thought to be meteorites, but it seems worthy of inquiry 
whether their origin may be like that of the equally 
large iron masses erupted from the earth's interior with 
basaltic lava, which by decay and weathering leaves the 
iron masses on the surface, at Ovifak, much farther 
south in western Greenland.* 

* Lieutenant Peary's narrative of his difficult and perilous 
journey on the ice sheet this year, with notes of his other explora- 
tions and of the collections by this relief party, is in the Bulletin 
of the American Geographical Society, vol. xxvii, pp. 300-306, 
September 30, 1895. 



CHAPTER XL 

COMPARISON OF PRESENT AND PLEISTOCENE ICE 
SHEETS. 

The guiding principle of geologic investigation, 
brought out most clearly by Sir Charles Lyell, requires 
us to seek the explanation of past changes of the earth 
by observation and study of agencies which are now in 
operation, producing similar changes during the present 
epoch. Such studies of the Swiss glaciers by Agassiz, 
Forbes, Tyndall, and others, proved conclusively, a 
generation ago, that the drift was formed by land ice, 
so that the comparatively small district of the Alps 
supplied the clew for deciphering the records of the 
latest completed chapter of the geologic history of 
northwestern Europe and the northern half of North 
America. Glaciers of other regions in the Eastern 
hemisphere, notably of the Himalayas and of Norway, 
have also contributed much to our knowledge of the 
ice sheets of the Pleistocene or Glacial period. The 
vast ice sheets of that time, however, are adequately ex- 
emplified at the present day only by the antarctic and 
Greenland ice sheets, less completely and on a much 
smaller scale by the yet very instructive Malaspina 
Glacier, and in some respects they may be profitably 
compared with the ITuir Glacier, which is the most fully 
studied icefield of America or perhaps of the world. 

In seeking to derive from the descriptions of the 
297 



298 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

icefields of Greenland, as given in the foregoing pages, 
their full significance for the explanation of the meth- 
ods of formation of the glacial and modified drift de- 
posits in temperate latitudes, we may therefore well 
notice briefly these other now existing ice sheets and 
glaciers. 

Land ice surrounds the south pole to a distance of 
twelve to twenty-five degrees from it, covering, as Sir Wy- 
ville Thomson estimates, about 4,500,000 square miles. 
Its area is thus slightly greater than that of the Pleisto- 
cene ice sheet of North America, which covered about 
4,000,000 square miles ; while the confluent Scandinavian 
and British ice sheets appear to have enveloped no more 
than 2,000,000 square miles, including the White, Bal- 
tic, North, and Irish Seas, whose areas were then occu- 
pied by the continental mer cle glace. The observations 
of Ross, in sailing along a part of the border of the ant- 
arctic ice sheet, and of Moseley, in the cruise of the 
Challenger among the enormous tabular icebergs which 
float away from it, have been noted in the preceding 
chapter (page 246). 

The Malaspina ice sheet in Alaska, stretching from 
the St. Elias range to the shore of the Pacific Ocean, 
has been described as follows by its principal explorer, 
Prof. I. 0. Russell, after his two expeditions of 1890 and 
1891:* 

This glacier extends with unbroken continuity from Yakutat 
Bay 70 miles westward, and has an average breadth of between 



* Mount St. Elias and its Glaciers, American Journal of Science, 
III. vol. xliii, pp. 169-182, with map, March, 1892. The report of 
the first expedition, in 1890, is given by Russell in the National 
Geographic Magazine, vol. iii, pp. 53-203, with 19 plates and 8 
figures in the text, May 29, 1891. 



PRESENT AND PLEISTOCENE ICE SHEETS. 299 

20 and 25 miles ; its area is approximately 1,500 square miles, . . . 
a vast, nearly horizontal plateau of ice, with a general elevation 
of about 1,500 feet. The central portion is free from moraines 
and dirt, but is rough, and broken by thousands and tens of 
thousands of small crevasses. Its surface is broadly undulating, 
and recalls the appearance of portions of the rolling prairie lands 
west of the Mississippi. ... On looking down on the glacier from 
an elevation of 2,000 or 3,000 feet on the hills bordering it on the 
north, even on the wonderfully clear days that follow storms, its 
limits are beyond the reach of vision. From any commanding 
station overlooking the Malaspina glacier, as from the summit of 
the Chaix Hills, for example, one sees that the great central area 
of clear, white ice is bordered on the south by a broad, dark band 
formed of boulders and stones. Outside of this, and forming a 
belt concentric with it, is a forest-covered area, in many places 
four or five miles wide. . . . 

The moraines not only cover all of the outer border of the 
glacier, but stream off from the mountain spurs that project into 
its northern border. . . . The stones and dirt previously contained 
in the glacier are . . . concentrated at the surface, owing to the 
melting of the ice that contains them. This is the history of all 
of the moraines of the Malaspina glacier. They are formed of the 
debris brought out of the mountains by the tributary alpine gla- 
ciers, and concentrated at the surface by reason of the ablation of 
the ice. . . . 

The outer and consequently older portions of the fringing 
moraines are covered with vegetation, which in places, particularly 
near the outer margin of the belt, has all the characteristics of 
old forests. It consists principally of spruce trees, some of which 
are three feet in diameter, and cottonwood, alder, and a great va- 
riety of shrubs and bushes, together with rank ferns, which grow 
so densely that one can scarcely force a passage through them. 
The vegetation grows on the moraines resting on the ice, which in 
many places is not less than a thousand feet thick. ... It is only 
on the stagnant border of the ice sheet that forests occur. The 
forest-covered area is, by estimate, between twenty and twenty-five 
square miles in extent. 

The drainage of the Malaspina glacier is almost entirely inter- 
glacial or subglacial. There is no surface drainage, excepting in 
a few localities where there is a surface slope, but even in such 



300 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

places the streams are short, and soon plunge into a crevasse or a 
raoulin and join the drainage beneath. 

On the lower portions of the alpine glaciers, tributary to the 
Malaspina, there are sometimes small streams coursing along in 
ice channels, but they are short-lived. On the borders of these 
tributaries there are frequently important streams flowing between 
the ice and a mountain slope, but where these come down to the 
Malaspina they flow into tunnels and are lost to view. 

Along the southern portion of the Malaspina glacier, between 
the Yahtse and Point Manby, there are hundreds of streams which 
pour out of the escarpment formed by the border of the glacier, 
or rise like great fountains from the gravel and boulders at its 
base. All of these streams are brown and heavy with sediment, 
and overloaded with boulders and stones. 

One of the largest streams draining the glacier is the Yahtse. 
This rises in two principal branches at the base of the Chaix Hills, 
and, flowing through a tunnel some six or eight miles long, 
emerges at the southern border of the glacier as a swift, brown 
flood, fully one hundred feet across and fifteen or twenty feet 
deep. The stream, after its subglacial course, spreads out into 
many branches, and has built up an alluvial fan which has invaded 
and buried thousands of acres of forest. In traversing the coast 
from the Yahtse to Yakutat Bay we crossed scores of ice-water 
streams which drain the icefield to the north. The greater part 
of these could be waded, but some of them are rivers which it was 
impossible to ford. 

Orogenic (mountain-building) disturbances formed 
the St. Elias range since the beginning of the Pleisto- 
cene period, for its basal portion consists of the late 
Pliocene and Pleistocene Pinnacle and Yakutat forma- 
tions, above which the St. Elias schist has been over- 
thrust. Fossil marine shells, all of which are represented 
by species now living in the adjacent ocean, were col- 
lected by Eussell in the cliffs above Pinnacle Pass, at the 
height of five thousand feet above the sea. The following 
summary of the history of this range is given by Eussell : * 

* National Geographic Magazine, vol. iii, pp. 172, 173. 



PRESENT AND PLEISTOCENE ICE SHEETS. 301 

Not only was a part, at least, of the Pinnacle system deposited 
during the life of living species of molluscs, but also the whole of 
the Yakutat series, the stratigraphic position of which is, if my de- 
termination is correct, above the Pinnacle system. After the sedi- 
ments composing the rocks of these two series were deposited in 
the sea as strata of sand, mud, etc., they were consolidated, over- 
thrust, faulted, and upheaved into one of the grandest mountain 
ridges on the continent. Then, after the mountains had reached 
a considerable height, if not their full growth, the snows of win- 
ter fell upon them, and glaciers were born. The glaciers increased 
to a maximum, and their surface reached from a thousand to two 
thousand feet higher than now on the more southern mountain 
spurs, and afterward slowly wasted away to their present dimen- 
sions. All of this interesting and varied history has been enacted 
during the life of existing species of plants and animals. 

The Muir Glacier, which was explored in 1886 by 
Wright* and Baldwin,! and in 1890 by Eeid J and 
Cushing,* is situated some 200 miles southeast of Mount 
St. Elias, and about 125 miles north of Sitka. It has 
an estimated area, with its tributary glaciers, of 350 
square miles, and the area inclosed by its watershed is 
about 800 square miles. The slope of the main glacier 
for 10 miles or more next to its termination in the sea 
at the head of Glacier Bay is about 100 feet per mile. 
Its frontal cliffs, which shed multitudes of bergs into 
the sea, had in 1890 an extent of If miles, and rose in 
a vertical wall of ice 130 to 210 feet above the water, 
which within 300 feet from the ice front has a maximum 

* American Journal of Science, III, vol. xxxiii, pp. 1-18, with 
map, January, 1887 ; The Ice Age in North America, 1889, chap- 
ter iii. 

f American Geologist, vol. xi, pp. 366-375, June, 1893. 
X National Geographic Magazine, vol. iv, pp. 19-84, with 16 
plates and 5 figures in the text, March 21, 1892. 

# American Geologist, vol. viii, pp. 207-230, with map, Octo- 
ber, 1891. 



302 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

depth of 720 feet. Between the years 1886 and 1890 
the front had receded one third to two thirds of a mile. 
In 1886 the height of the Muir ice cliffs above the 
water was found to be 250 to 300 feet ; and the rates of 
forward motion of the most prominent ice pinnacles 
near to the front and within half a mile back from it 
were roughly measured and found to vary from 72 feet 
to 9 feet per day, the maximum being that of a pinna- 
cle close to the projecting middle of the terminal cliffs. 
In 1890 the rates of the glacial currents were measured 
by observations of flags set on the surface of the glacier 
one fourth to one half of a mile back from its then 
nearly straight and much lower front, and the maxi- 
mum movement at some distance from the centre was 
ascertained to be only about seven feet per day. In re- 
spect to the apparent discrepancy of these determina- 
tions, separated by an interval of four years, it is to be 
remarked that the ice pinnacles, belonging to the most 
fractured and crevassed portions of the glacier, doubt- 
less move onward much faster than its more even tracts, 
which can be traversed and marked by flags ; and that 
the two different years between which the front was 
withdrawn so far may have been considerably unlike in 
the meteorologic conditions governing the flow of the 
glacier. The abundant observations of Helland, Steen- 
strup, Drygalski, and others, on the rates of outflow of 
glaciers into the fiords and. bays of the western coast of 
Greenland, show that there the glacial advance ranges 
frequently from 30 to 65 feet daily, and in at least one 
case is about 100 feet. Narrow glaciers in the valleys 
of the Alps move only a few feet daily ; but the broad 
glaciers of polar regions, when they terminate in the 
sea, often move at their ends much more rapidly, as 30 
to 50 feet or more per day. 



PRESENT AND PLEISTOCENE ICE SHEETS. 303 

Like the Malaspina ice sheet and other glaciers of 
the St. Elias region, the Muir Glacier is fast retreating. 
From the narrative of Vancouver's exploration of this 
coast in 1794, and from observations of freshly glaciated 
rock surfaces far outside and also far above the present 
glacier, it appears sure that only one to two centuries 
ago the Muir Glacier stretched some 20 miles farther 
than now, nearly to the mouth of Glacier Bay. Its 
advance to this maximum area had perhaps occupied a 
considerably longer time than its retreat, but the whole 
time of both advance and recession appears to be geo- 
logically recent. In its forward movement forests be- 
came enveloped in the gravel and sand discharged by 
streams from the glacier, and they were then overridden 
by the ice advance, so that now on its retreat the still 
standing trees are being uncovered by the channelling 
of streams. 

During the summer of 1890 the rate of ablation 
of the frontal part of the Muir Glacier was about 14 
inches per week, which would lower its surface proba- 
bly 15 or 20 feet in the whole season. This corres- 
ponds approximately with the ablation of the Mer de 
Glace in Switzerland, ascertained by Forbes to be 24^ 
feet between June and September, in 1842 ; while in 
some exceptional cases the ablation of glaciers in 
summer has been found to be as much as one foot a 
day. 

One other point of great significance brought out by 
these investigations of the Muir Glacier is the approxi- 
mate determination of the rate of glacial erosion upon 
its rock bed. Measurements of the sediment in the 
w T ater of the copious subglacial streams, and estimates 
of the quantity of water annually discharged from the 
rainfall and snowfall of the Muir basin, indicate, 
21 



304 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

according to Wright's computations, an average ero- 
sion of one third of an inch yearly for all the ice-clad 
area. 

From these existing glaciers and ice sheets we learn 
much concerning the probable surface slopes and thick- 
ness of the ice sheets of the Glacial period. In North 
America, the upper limits of the Pleistocene glaciation 
on Mount Katahdin, the Catskills, the Three Buttes or 
Sweet Grass Hills of Montana, the Rocky Mountains 
north of the international boundary, and the mountains 
of British Columbia give us reliable information of the 
thickness of the ice sheet in the vicinity of these high 
elevations of land. Its depth is computed by Dana to 
have been about two miles on the Laurentide highlands, 
between the St. Lawrence and Hudson Bay, whence the 
ice flowed radially outward in all directions, during its 
maximum stage overtopping the White, Green, and 
Adirondack Mountains. In British Columbia, accord- 
ing to Dr. G. M. Dawson, its maximum depth was about 
7,000 feet. These thicknesses, however, which seem 
well determined, would not give to the borders of the 
North American ice sheet surface slopes of more than 
about 25 to 30 feet per mile ; whereas the Greenland ice 
sheet is known to have surface gradients of 100 to 200 
feet per mile. Apparently, slopes of at least 50 feet or 
more per mile for the outer portion of the ice sheet 
are required to produce strong glacial currents, such as 
transported boulders 1,000 miles, from the eastern side 
of the southern part of Hudson Bay, where it narrows 
into James Bay, south west ward to southern Minnesota, 
and such as carried Scandinavian boulders likewise 
about 1,000 miles from their sources to central Eussia. 
The Pleistocene ice sheets could have had gradients 
comparable in steepness with those of the Greenland 



PRESENT AND PLEISTOCENE ICE SHEETS. 305 

ice sheet only by widely extended uplifts of the central 
portions of their areas to heights at least several thou- 
sand feet above their present altitudes. These conti- 
nental movements of uplift, suggested by the ice sheet 
of Greenland, appear, as will be shown in a later chap- 
ter, to have been the cause of the climatic changes by 
which the ice sheets of North America and Europe 
were accumulated. 

Another comparison may be made in respect to the 
rates of erosion by the Pleistocene ice sheets. The 
Muir Glacier is found to be eroding its rock bed at the 
rate of about a third of an inch in a year, or a foot 
in thirty-six years, and nearly three feet in a century. 
Probably the erosion by the ice sheets of the Glacial 
period was less rapid, even in the zone of most efficient 
action, which may have been usually from 50 to 200 
miles inside the ice boundary. If their erosion was a 
half or third as much, in a thousand years this zone 
would be eroded to an average depth of 10 feet, more 
or less, and in five thousand years 50 feet. Farther 
within the ice-covered area the erosion was probably 
less; but during the recession of the ice sheet, and per- 
haps also during its accumulation, the maximum rate of 
erosion would prevail successively upon all parts of the 
drift-bearing regions. In the light of this comparison 
with the modern Muir Glacier, it is evident, from the 
volume of the drift and the topographic features of the 
country, that a geologic period not exceeding thirty 
thousand or fifty thousand years would suffice for the 
observed volume of the Pleistocene glacial erosion and 
resulting drift. 

With reference to the questions whether the drift 
was transported chiefly beneath the ice sheets of the 
Glacial period or chiefly within their lower part, the 



306 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

observations of Hoist and Chamberlin on the englacial * 
drift of the Greenland ice sheet and of Enssell on the 
Malaspina Glacier fully reaffirm the conclusions reached 
through investigations of the North American drift by 
Dana, Shaler, C. H. Hitchcock, N. H. Winchell, Up- 
ham, and others, that the Pleistocene ice sheet con- 
tained much drift in its lower portion to heights of 
probably 1,000 to 1,500 feet above the ground. This 
transportation of drift within the ice seems to have been 
equally important with the subglacial transportation, 
and indeed probably to have much exceeded that in its 
amount. 

The rates of observed ablation of the Muir Glacier 
and the Mer de Glace suggest that during the closing 
stage of the Glacial period the ice sheets, both in Amer- 
ica and Europe, may have been melted away very fast. 
If such ablation prevailed every summer for one or two 
centuries, it must melt 2,000 to 4,000 feet of ice, which 
was approximately the thickness of the Pleistocene ice 
sheet from central New England westward across the 
Laurentian lakes to Minnesota and southern Manitoba. 
This accords with the apparent duration of the glacial 
Lake Agassiz for only about 1,000 years, and with the 
evidently very rapid accumulation of the eskers, of their 
associated sand plains and plateaus, of the valley drift, 
and of the drumlins. There were, indeed, many times 
of halt or readvance of the ice fronts interrupting its 
general retreat, as shown by the marginal moraines, of 
which Chamberlin, Leverett, and others have mapped 
no less than fifteen or twenty in their order from south 
to north in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and southern Michi- 

* A term proposed by Prof. Chamberlin to designate drift in- 
corporated in the ice and thus transported with it. 



PRESENT AND PLEISTOCENE ICE SHEETS. 307 

gan ; but such halts forming large moraines on each 
side of Lake Agassiz were demonstrably of short con- 
tinuance, only for a few decades of years, and the whole 
departure of the ice sheet from the southern end of that 
glacial lake to Hudson Bay was geologically very rapid. 

The Malaspina ice sheet has been gradually retreat- 
ing during the past hundred years, or probably much 
longer. On all its border for a width of a few miles, 
now thinned perhaps to a quarter part, or less, of 
the earlier depth, the waning ice is covered by its for- 
merly englacial drift, but in that cold climate the 
glacial movement is so very slow that forest trees, with 
luxuriant undergrowth of shrubs, and many herbaceous 
flowering plants, grow on this drift lying upon hundreds 
of feet of ice, as revealed by stream channels. Advan- 
cing toward the interior, the explorer soon comes upon 
higher clear ice and neve, having risen above the plane 
of the englacial debris, excepting along the course of 
belts of medial surface morainic drift, swept outward 
from spurs of the mountains. This ice sheet partially 
suggests the conditions of the moraine-forming southern 
portion of the North American and European ice sheets 
during the Champlain epoch or closing part of the Ice 
Age ; but these had a climate much warmer than that 
of Alaska, with consequently far more rapid ablation and 
stronger glacial currents. 

In Greenland, on the other hand, the mean temper- 
ature has probably been gradually lowered during sev- 
eral centuries past, since the prosperous times of the 
Norse colonies, nine hundred to five hundred years ago. 
A great ice sheet 1,500 miles long, with a maximum width 
of 700 miles and an area of about 575,000 square miles, 
covers all the interior of Greenland ; and although now 
its extent is less than during the Glacial period, it has 



308 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

doubtless held its own, or mainly somewhat increased 
during several hundred years. While the snow and ice 
accumulation is predominant, no englacial drift becomes 
superglacial ; but in the region of Inglefield Gulf 
Chamberlin finds the frontal ice cliffs well charged with 



*K 




Fig. 54.— Gable Glacier. Inglefield Gulf, showing inset debris and lamina- 
tion of the ice. (Chamberlin.) 

englacial debris to a third or half of their total heights 
of 100 to 200 feet or more. The same ratio of the lower 
part of the ice sheet containing drift would quite cer- 
tainly give it a thickness of 1,000 to 2,000 feet in the 
deeply ice-covered central portion of Greenland. Other 



PRESENT AND PLEISTOCENE ICE SHEETS. 309 

features especially noted are the very distinct stratifica- 
tion of the ice and its differential forward motion, pro- 
ducing not only this stratification but also sigmoid folds 
and overthrust faults, where the upper layers move 
faster than the lower, and these in turn faster than the 
friction-hindered base. In just the same way the accel- 
erated currents of the waning ice sheet during the tem- 
perate Ohamplain epoch overrode each other in succes- 
sion from the highest to the lowest on the moraine- 
forming border, bearing a great amount of superglacial 
drift to the margin, whenever it remained nearly 
stationary during a series of years. If a mild temperate 
climate could bring to Greenland the conditions of the 
Ohamplain epoch, its thick ice sheet in the interior 
under rapid ablation would fully illustrate, as the 
Malaspina Glacier even now does in a considerable de- 
gree, the formation of the great series of morainic drift 
hills which mark stages in the retreat of the continental 
ice sheets. 



CHAPTEE XII. 

PLEISTOCENE CHANGES OF LEVEL AROUND THE BASIN 
OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 

In North America, on the west side of the North 
Atlantic Ocean, and in Europe, on its east side, ice 
sheets of vast extent were accumulated during the Ice 
Age or Pleistocene period — the last completed division 
of geologic time — immediately preceding the present or 
Psychozoic period. Between the two great areas that 
were then ice enveloped is the land, almost a continent, 
which has been the theme of the foregoing pages ; and 
we have seen that it now lies, for the greater part of its 
whole area, beneath an ice sheet similar to those of 
North America and Europe in Pleistocene times. 
Greenland, therefore, may be well expected to supply 
us the key for the interpretation of the processes of the 
erosion, transportation, and deposition of the glacial 
drift on the contiguous continents. Furthermore, in 
our inquiry concerning the causes of the extraordinary 
Pleistocene ice accumulation, we may well look to 
Greenland for aid toward the solution of this difficult 
and still much debated question. Eeserving these dis- 
cussions, however, to later chapters, it will be profitable 
here to take a general survey of the changes in the rela- 
tive heights of land and sea which are known to have 
occurred on the northern, western, and eastern borders 
of the North Atlantic basin during the Pleistocene 

310 



PLEISTOCENE CHANGES OF LEVEL. 



311 



period. These land oscillations not only account for 
the peculiarities of geographic range of many species in 
the flora and fauna of Greenland, but also they have 




given origin to the great climatic changes of the arctic 
and north temperate zones, through which the warm 
temperate Miocene circumpolar flora was succeeded at 



312 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

the end of the Tertiary era by the ice sheets adjoining 
the North Atlantic, and later, by returning warmth, 
melting away the continental glaciers and somewhat re- 
stricting the area of the great field of snow and ice en- 
veloping the interior of Greenland. In the present 
chapter we will examine the evidences of the Pleistocene 
changes of level, leaving their application as the causes 
of the accumulation, and later of the disappearance of 
the Pleistocene ice sheets, for special review in another 
chapter. 

More than forty years ago Prof. James D. Dana 
showed that the fiords are valleys which were eroded by 
streams during a formerly greater elevation of the land. 
At the time of their excavation the streams flowed along 
the bottom of the fiords, and the depths of these be- 
neath the present sea level are a measure of the ensuing 
subsidence, or of a large part of it, for evidently the 
subsidence could not have been less, but may have been 
more, than the depth of the fiords. Few of the fiords 
of Greenland have been carefully sounded, but many of 
the ice fiords are known, by the size of the bergs floated 
out to sea with the ebbing of the tides (10 to 12 feet in 
difference of height between high and low tide on the 
Baffin Bay coast), to have at least a depth of l',000 feet 
of water. In the Jakobshavn ice fiord the fishermen 
sink their lines to a depth of nearly 1,300 feet for the 
fish which have their feeding grounds at the bottom. 
In the Franz Josef Fiord, on the east side of Greenland, 
Captain Koldewey found no bottom by a sounding of 
500 fathoms (3,000 feet). 

Greenland is divided from the contiguous North 
American continent and archipelago by a great valley 
of erosion, which is estimated from soundings and tidal 
records to have a mean depth of 2,510 feet below sea 



PLEISTOCENE CHANGES OF LEVEL. 313 

level for 680 miles through Davis Strait, 2,095 feet for 
770 miles next northward through Baffin Bay, and 1,663 
feet for the next 55 miles north through Smith Strait* 
Continuing northward, this eroded valley, now depressed 
beneath the sea, has a depth of 203 fathoms (or 1,218 
feet) in Kennedy Channel, latitude 81°. 

The fiords of the west coast of Greenland vary from 
10 or 20 miles to 75 miles or more in length ; and on 
the east coast the deep and branching Franz Josef Fiord 
(latitude 73° 15') was explored by Koldewey in 1870 to 
a distance of about 100 miles from the outer shore line. 

Analogous in their physical features and origin with 
the fiords are the long, irregular straits, channels, and 
sounds which divide the many large and small islands 
of the arctic archipelago west of Baffin Bay. They are 
doubtless old river courses of the former northward con- 
tinuation of the continent, now so far submerged that 
what w T ere valleys have become branching and interlock- 
ing arms of the sea. Only scanty soundings have been 
obtained in these waters, which are covered by floes and 
the broken ice pack during the greater part of the year. 
In Lancaster Sound, much frequented by American 
whalers, the depth of 900 feet is recorded ; in Barrow 
Strait, leading thence westward between North Devon 
and the west part of Cockburn Land, there is a sound- 
ing of 1,680 feet ; and the north part of Prince Eegent's 
Inlet, leading southward near 90° longitude, has a 
depth of 1,080 feet. (United States Navy Hydrographic 
Office charts.) 

* Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. xv, pp. 163, 
164. Am. Geologist, vol. vi, p. 330, December, 1890 ; Am. Jour. 
Sci., Ill, vol. xlvi, p. 119, August, 1893. (Compare also the state- 
ment of the same explanation in a more recent paper, by Prof. N. 
S. Shaler, Bulletin, Geol. Soc. Am., vol. vi, p. 158, January, 1895.) 



314 



GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 



Southward, on the northeastern borders of North 
America, the British Admiralty and United States Coast 
Survey charts, according to Prof. J. W. Spencer, who 
has given much attention to these oscillations of alti- 
tude, record submerged fiord outlets from Hudson Bay, 




is: 








Fig. 56.— North side of Gable Glacier, Inglefield Gulf, showing- an over- 
thrust, with debris along the plane of contact. The ice is much veined. 
(Chamberlin.) 



the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the Gulf of Maine, re- 
spectively 2,040 feet, 3,666 feet, and 2,664 feet below 
sea level. The bed of the old Laurentian River from 
the outer boundary of the Fishing Banks to the mouth 
of the Saguenay, a distance of more than 800 miles, is 



PLEISTOCENE CHANGES OF LEVEL. 315 

reached by soundings 1,878 to 1,104 feet in depth. Ad- 
vancing inland, the sublime Saguenay Fiord, along an 
extent of about 50 miles, ranges from 300 to 840 feet in 
depth below the sea level, while in some places its bor- 
dering cliffs, 1 to 1-J- mile apart, rise abruptly 1,500 feet 
above the water.* 

The continuation of the Hudson River Valley has 
been traced by detailed hydrographic surveys to the 
edge of the steep continental slope at a distance of about 
105 miles southeastward from Sandy Hook. Its outer- 
most 25 miles are a submarine fiord 3 miles wide and 
from 900 to 2,250 feet in the vertical depth, measured 
from the crests of its banks, which, with the adjoining 
flat area, decline from 300 to 600 feet below the present 
sea level. The deepest sounding in this submerged 
fiord is 2,844 feet, f 

An unfinished survey by soundings off the mouth of 
Delaware Bay finds a similar valley submerged nearly 
1,200 feet, but not yet traced to the margin of the con- 
tinental plateau. 

Farther to the south Prof. N. S. Shaler concludes 
that Florida has been uplifted probably 2,000 feet, more 
or less, above its present height. This opinion is 
founded on the distribution of species of animals and 

* J. W. Spencer, Bulletin, Geol. Soc. Am., vol. i, 1890, pp. 65- 
70, with map of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the submerged 
Laurentian River. J. W. Dawson, Notes on the Post-Pliocene 
Geology of Canada, 1872, p. 41 ; The Canadian Ice Age, 1893, pp. 
71-74. 

f A. Lindenkohl, Report of IT. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey 
for 1884, pp. 435-438 ; Am. Jour. Sci., Ill, vol. xxix, pp. 475-480, 
June, 1885 ; James D. Dana, Am. Jour. Sci., Ill, vol. xl, pp. 425- 
437, December, 1890, with an excellent map of the Hudson sub- 
marine valley and fiord, 



316 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

plants in the West Indies and in the adjoining parts of 
North and South America ; on the estuarine mouths of 
the rivers of the southeastern United States ; on the 
existence of fresh water to the depth of 900 feet, and of 
salt water lower, in a deep well bored at St. Augustine ; 
and on the occurrence of a great fresh-water spring well- 
ing up strongly in the sea " a few miles to the south of St. 
Augustine and three or four miles from the coast line." 
The issuance of this submarine spring can be only from 
a cavernous subterranean water course in the limestone 
of the Floridian peninsula, originally due to running 
water when the land was formerly much elevated.* It 
is worthy of note that an uplift of 2,064 feet would 
unite this peninsula with Cuba, closing the Strait of 
Florida, through which the Gulf Stream now pours into 
the North Atlantic. 

In the West Indies the recent geologic researches of 
A. J. Jukes-Browne and J. B. Harrison, f B. T. Hill, J 
and J. W. Spencer,* well demonstrate that these islands 
have undergone great changes of level, both of subsid- 
ence and uplift, during late Tertiary and Quaternary 
time. Similar conclusions are also reached by C. T. 
Simpson from his study of the distribution and varia- 
tions of the land and fresh-water molluscs of the West 
Indian region. || 

The Isthmus of Panama also appears to have been 
depressed deeply beneath the sea within the same late 

* Nature and Man in America, 1891, pp. 99-107; Bulletin, 
Geo]. Soc. Am., vol. vi, 1895, pp. 154, 155. 

f Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc, vol. xlvii, 1891, pp. 197-250. 

X Am. Jour. Sci., Ill, vol. xlviii, pp. 196-212, September, 1894. 

# Bulletin, Geol. Soc. Am., vol. vi, pp. 103-140, with map and 
sections, January, 1895. 

|| Proa, U. S. National Museum, vol. xvii, 1894, pp. 423-450. 



PLEISTOCENE CHANGES OF LEVEL. 317 

geologic period, as is indicated by the close relationship 
of the Pacific and West Indian deep-sea faunas on the 
opposite sides of the isthmus, made known through 
dredging by Alexander Agassiz.* This testimony, in- 
deed, with that of Darwin, L. and A. Agassiz, and 
others, of very recent, extensive, and deep subsidence of 
the western coast of South America, apparently, how- 
ever, continuing for no long time, lends much proba- 
bility to the supposition that the low Panama isthmus 
was somewhat deeply submerged for a geologically short 
period contemporaneous with epeirogenic uplifts f of 
the circumpolar parts of this continent, both at the 
north and south, whereby the effects of great altitude 
in covering the northern and southern high areas with 
ice sheets were augmented by the passage of much of 
the Gulf Stream into the Pacific Ocean. 

Several low passes between the Gulf of Mexico and 
the Pacific are found in the Lake Nicaragua region, on 
the Isthmus of Panama, and in the Atrato Kiver district 
on the south, at heights from 133 to 300 feet above the 
sea, so that only moderate changes of level would give 
a shallow submergence. Previous to the observations 
by A. Agassiz in dredging, which seem to require deep 
subsidence of the isthmus to account for close alliance 
or identity of deep-sea species, a less submergence had 
been long before claimed by P. P. Carpenter, Wyville 

* Bulletin, Museum Comp. Zool., at Harvard College, vol. xxi, 
pp. 185-200, June, 1891. 

f The terms epeirogeny and epeirogenic (continent-producing, 
from the Greek epeiros, a mainland or continent) are proposed by- 
Mr. G. K. Gilbert (in Lake Bonneville, Monograph I, TJ. S. Geo- 
logical Survey, 1890, p. 340) to designate the broad movements 
of uplift and subsidence which affect the whole or large portions 
of the continental areas and of the oceanic basins, 



318 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

Thomson, and others. Thus Carpenter, in a report on 
the mollusca of the opposite sides of the Isthmus of 
Panama, regarded 35 species as alike in the two oceans ; 
34 other species so nearly allied that they may prove to 
he identical ; and 41 others separated by only very slight 
differences.* Thomson arranged side by side 18 species 
of echinoderms from each sea, which resemble each 
other so closely as to be hardly distinguishable. f A. E. 
Wallace affirms that on the opposite sides of the isthmus 
" no less than 48 species of fishes are identical," which, 
with the community in the lower orders before noted, 
he thinks to be sufficient proof of " a connection be- 
tween the oceans at a recent date." J 

On the Pacific coast of the United States, Prof. 
Joseph Le Conte has shown that the islands south of 
Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, now separated from 
the mainland and from each other by channels 20 to 30 
miles wide and COO to 1,000 feet deep, were still a part 
of the mainland during the late Pliocene and early 
Quaternary periods. * In northern California, Prof. 
George Davidson, of the United States Coast Survey, 
reports three submarine valleys about 25, 12, and 6 miles 
south of Cape Mendocino, sinking respectively to 2,400, 
3,120, and 2,700 feet below the sea level, where they 
cross the 100-fathom line of the marginal plateau. || If 
the land there were to rise 1,000 feet, these valleys 

* British Association Report, 1856. 

f Depths of the Sea, 1873, pp. 13-15. 

X Nature, vol. ix, p. 220, Jan. 22, 1874. Compare also an 
article by Dr. Charles Ricketts in the Geological Magazine, II, 
vol. ii, 1875, pp. 573-580. 

# Bulletin of the California Academy of Sciences, vol. ii, 1887, 
pp. 515-520. 

|| Ibid,, vol, ii, pp. 265-268, 



PLEISTOCENE CHANGES OP LEVEL. 319 

would be fiords with sides towering high above the 
water, but still descending beneath it to great depths. 

Farther to the north, Puget Sound and the series of 
sheltered channels and sounds through which the 
steamboat passage is made to Glacier Bay, Alaska, are 
submerged valleys of erosion, now filled by the sea, but 
separated from the open ocean by thousands of islands, 
the continuation of the Coast Eange of mountains. 
From the depths of the channels and fiords Dr. G. M. 
Dawson concludes that this area had a preglacial 
elevation at least about 900 feet above the present 
sea level, during part or the whole of the Pliocene 
period.* 

Le Conte has correlated the great epeirogenic uplifts 
of Korth America, known by these deeply submerged 
valleys on both the eastern and western coasts, with the 
latest time of orogenic disturbance by faulting and up- 
heaval of the Sierra Xevada and Coast Ranges in Cali- 
fornia, during the closing stage of the Tertiary and the 
early part of the Quaternary era, culminating in the 
Glacial period. f In the Mississippi basin, from the 
evidence of river currents much stronger than now, 
transporting Archaean pebbles from near the sources of 
the Mississippi to the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, Prof. 
E. W. Hilgard thinks that the preglacial uplift, in- 
augurating the Ice Age, was 4,000 or 5,000 feet more in 
the central part of the continent than at the river's 
mouth. J 



* Canadian Naturalist, new series, vol. viii, pp. 241-248, April, 
1877. 

f Bulletin, Geol. Soc. Am., vol. ii, 1891, pp. 323-330; Elements 
of Geology, third edition, 1891, pp. 562-569, 589. 

% Am. Jour. Sci., Ill, vol. xliii, pp. 389-402, May, 1892. 
22 



320 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

The general absence of Pliocene formations along 
both the Atlantic and Pacific shores of North America 
indicates, as pointed ont by Prof. 0. H. Hitchcock, that 
daring this long geologic period all of the continent 
north of the Gulf of Mexico held a greater altitude, 
which from the evidence of the submarine valleys is 
known to have culminated in an elevation at least 3,000 
feet higher than that of the present time. Such plateau- 
like uplift of the continent had only a short duration 
on the latitude of New York and of Gape Mendocino 
(between 40° and 41°). With the steep gradients of 
the preglacial Hudson River and of the streams which 
formed the now submerged channels on the Californian 
coast, these rivers, if allowed a long time for erosion, 
must have formed even longer and broader valleys than 
the still very impressive troughs which are now found 
on these submarine continental slopes. But the dura- 
tion of the epeirogenic uplift of these areas, on the bor- 
der of the glaciation for the Hudson and beyond it for 
the Californian rivers, can scarcely be compared in its 
brevity with the prolonged high altitude held during 
late Tertiary and early Quaternary time by the deeply 
fiord-indented Scandinavian peninsula, and by all the 
northern coasts of North America, from Maine and 
Puget Sound to the arctic archipelago and Greenland. 
The abundant long and branching fiords of these north- 
ern regions, and the wide and deep channels dividing 
their islands, attest a very long time of preglacial high 
elevation there. At the time of culmination of the long- 
continued and slowly increasing uplifts at the north, or, 
very probably, much later, when the most northern 
lands and the basin of Baffin Bay had become depressed 
nearly as now, the maximum epeirogenic elevation 
seems to have extended during a short epoch far to the 



PLEISTOCENE CHANGES OF LEVEL. 321 

south, coincident with the accumulation of ice sheets in 
high latitudes. 

The time of the erosion of the great fiords of Green- 
land is known to have been wholly subsequent to the 
deposition of the leaf-bearing beds, the highest of which 
are considered by Heer to be of Miocene age, while Sir 
William Dawson and J. Starkie Gardner refer them to 
the Eocene period. Intercalated with the higher por- 
tions of these plant-bearing strata of sandstone and 
shales are layers of basalt, and great outflows of the 
same lava cap the fossiliferous series (see Chapter VIII, 
page 208). After the volcanic activity had ceased, au 
uplift of the land appears to have slowly borne the 
basaltic plain thousands of feet above its original level ; 
and streams meanwhile, slowly cutting down their beds, 
channelled the majestic fiords and the deep "Waigat 
Valley whose bottom is now submerged, dividing Disco 
Island from the Noursoak (or Nugsuak) Peninsula. Of 
this Waigat passage Dr. Xansen writes: "As Prof. 
Helland has observed, no geologist who has examined 
the spot can doubt for a moment that the huge strata 
from the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, as well as the 
later basaltic formations lying above them, which show 
corresponding features and dimensions on either side of 
the channel, once formed a solid and connected whole. 
The channel can not be older than the rocks which form 
its sides. And as some of the Tertiary deposits are of 
very recent date, belonging, in fact, to the latest section 
of Miocene times, and as, furthermore, these strata are 
covered by huge layers of basalt, it follows that the 
Waigat itself must be a production of a comparatively 
recent period. . . . The basalt layers reach a height of 
from 4,000 to 5,000 feet, or even more; and as the 
channel itself is of great depth, we can see that here a 



322 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

mass of solid rock, nearly 100 miles in length, some 10 
miles broad, and several thousand feet in thickness, has 
been quarried out and carried away. . . ."* Nansen 
attributes this stupendous work of erosion to glacial 
action when the inland ice was so extended as to fill the 
Waigat Valley with an immense outflowing glacier ; and 
it is true that the ice sheet has been sufficiently greater 
than now to permit this assumption. Dr. Rink notes 
the occurrence of granitic drift boulders on the top of 
the basalt mountains of Disco. The ice has doubtless 
occupied the Waigat Valley, but the excavation of this 
fiordlike passage, with essentially its present topo- 
graphic features, like the erosion of the Colorado canon 
and its tributaries, must be ascribed not to ice abrasion, 
but to slow, long-continued stream channelling during 
a million years, more or less, forming the later part of 
the Tertiary era, with some portion probably for the 
Greenland fiords, and the whole for the Grand Canon, 
of the ensuing comparatively very short Quaternary era. 
For the sake of clearness of statement, we have thus 
far considered only or chiefly the great uplifts of the 
land areas which characterized the end of the Tertiary 
era and the early part of the Pleistocene period up to the 
Ice Age. Succeeding that time of general elevation of 
the northern and circumpolar lands, on both sides and 
north of the North Atlantic Ocean, there came a time 
of correspondingly general land depression, when these 
countries sank nearly to their present height, or mostly, 
for the regions which had been ice-covered, somewhat 
lower than now, so that their coastal tracts were to a 
considerable extent submerged beneath the sea. The 
prevailing connection of this depression with the previ- 

* The First Crossing of Greenland, vol. ii, pp. 473, 474. 



PLEISTOCENE CHANGES OF LEVEL. 323 

ous heavy loading of the land by the thick mass of the 
ice sheets, and their sequence as apparently cause and 
effect, will be discussed further on ; but it is evident that 
in some areas, and especially in the region of northern 
Labrador, along Baffin Bay, and farther north, the down- 
ward movement of the land, subsequent to the time of 
elevation in which the fiords were eroded, was far greater 
than would be proportionate with the probable burden 
of the ice sheets and their removal. 

The greatest amount of this recent subsidence, fol- 
lowed by more recent re-elevation, known for any part 
of the great region inclosing the North Atlantic basin, 
is in northwestern Greenland and the contiguous Grin- 
nell Land and Grant Land. In a paper read before the 
section of Geography in the British Association at the 
meeting in August, 1894, Col. H. W. Feilden, who was 
the naturalist of the Nares Arctic Expedition in 1875- 
'76, reviewed the reasons for hoping and expecting that 
Nansen and his party, after drifting in the ice pack 
across the sea surrounding the north pole, will return 
to tell their experiences. Not only is Siberian drift- 
wood strewn along the northwest coast of Greenland 
and the shores of Grinnell Land, but also the currents 
have brought such driftwood during a long time past, 
in which Grinnell Land has been uplifted at least 1,000 
feet. Up to that height Col. Feilden there found 
driftwood embedded in recent alluvial or glacial clay 
and mud deposits, with marine shells of the species 
now living in the adjoining sea. The bivalve shells are 
often still held together by their hinges and retain their 
brown epidermis ; and the wood is combustible, and so 
light as to float on water. All the wood appears to be 
of coniferous species, being wholly different from the 
driftwood cast on the shores of Spitzbergen, which is 



394 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

borne by the Gulf Stream into the North Atlantic and 
Arctic Oceans. In another paper, prepared soon after 
the return of the Nares expedition, Feilden, with his 
associate, C. E. De Eance, wrote : 

A careful examination of the fossil remains found in the recent 
beds of Grinnell Land and North Greenland, extending from an 
altitude of 1,000 feet to the present sea level, gives unmistakable 
evidence that the fauna is practically identical with that now 
existing in Grinnell Land as well as in the neighbouring sea. The 
remains of mammalia, such as the lemming (Myodes torquatus), 
the ringed seal (Phoca hispida), the reindeer (Gervas tarandus), 
and musk ox {Ovibos moschatus), were discovered in these beds. 
The marine mollusca most abundant as living species in the adja- 
cent seas, such as Pecten grc&nlandicus, Astarte iorecdis, Mya 
truncata, and Saxicava rugosa, are also the most abundant spe- 
cies throughout the mud beds; while the stems of two species of 
Laminaria, which appear to grow in considerable abundance in 
the Polar Sea, were detected in mud beds, at an elevation of 200 
feet, still retaining their peculiar seashore odour. Coniferous 
driftwood of precisely the same character as that now stranded 
was found at elevations of several hundred feet, and so little 
altered by time or climate that it still retained its buoyancy. . . . 

The accounts given of trees having been found in similar post- 
Pliocene beds in the 1 polar regions, under circumstances that would 
lead to the supposition that such trees had grown in situ, are not 
to be relied on ; and no evidences were discovered in the mud beds 
of Grinnell Land to encourage the opinion that there have been 
any interglacial periods of increased temperature — at all events, 
during the long time which must have elapsed while Grinnell 
Land was rising to an altitude of 1,000 feet above the present sea 
level* 

A list of fifteen species of fossil lamellibranch shells, 
nine of gastropod shells, and several species in other 
groups, collected by Feilden in the Pleistocene beds oi 
Grinnell Land and northern Greenland up to about 

* Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc, London, vol. xxxiv, 1878, pp. 566, 567. 



PLEISTOCENE CHANGES OF LEVEL. 325 

1,200 feet above the sea, as identified by Dr. J. Gwyn 
Jeffreys and others, is given by Sir William Dawson in 
The Canadian Ice Age (pages 269, 270). 

Later, in the same region, fossil marine shells have 
been found at still greater heights, proving a recent 
subsidence to the depth of 2,000 feet, with subsequent 
re-elevation. Gen. A. W. Greely's Report of the United 
States Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay, Grinnell 
Land, mentions (in volume ii, page 57) the occurrence 
there of recent fossil shells of Astarte lactea up to 1,000 
feet, and of Saxicava arctica, as provisionally deter- 
mined, up to 2,000 feet above the sea. At Polaris Bay, 
on the neighbouring Greenland coast (near latitude 
81° 30'), marine shells are reported, by Dr. Emil Bes- 
sels, to occur up to the height of 1,600 feet. 

Marine fossils in beds overlying the glacial drift 
prove that the northeastern part of North America 
stood lower than now in the Champlain epoch — that is, 
the time of departure of the ice sheet. This depression, 
which seems to have been produced by the vast weight 
of the ice, was bounded on the south approximately by 
a line drawn from near the city of New York north- 
eastward to Boston and onward through Nova Scotia. 
When the ice sheet was being withdrawn from this 
region the country south of this line stood somewhat 
higher than now, as is shown by the channels of streams 
that flowed away from the melting ice and ran across 
the modified drift plains which form the southern shores 
of Long Island, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and Cape 
Cod. A subsequent depression of the land there, con- 
tinning, perhaps, uninterruptedly to the present time, 
has brought the sea into these old river courses; but 
north and northwest of this line the land at the time of 
recession of the ice sheet was lower than now, and the 



326 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

coast and estuaries were more submerged by the sea. 
Fossiliferons beds of modified drift, supplied from the 
melting ice sheet and resting on the till, show that the 
vertical amount of the marine submergence when the 
ice sheet disappeared was 10 to 25 feet in the vicinity of 
Boston and northeastward to Cape Ann ; about 150 feet 
in the vicinity of Portsmouth, New Hampshire; from 
150 to 300 feet along the coast of Maine and southern 
New Brunswick ; about 40 feet on the northwestern 
shore of Nova Scotia; thence increasing westward to 
200 feet in the Bay of Chaleurs, 375 feet in the St. 
Lawrence Valley opposite to the Saguenay, and 560 feet 
at Montreal ; 300 to 400 feet, increasing from south to 
north, along the basin of Lake Champlain ; about 275 
feet at Ogdensburg, and 450 feet near the city of Ot- 
tawa ; 300 to 500 feet on the country southwest of 
James Bay ; and in Labrador, little at the south, but 
increasing northward to 1,500 feet at Nachvak, accord- 
ing to Dr. Eobert Bell ; while in northern Greenland 
and Grinnell Land, as before noted, it was from 1,000 
to 2,000 feet. 

That the land northward from Boston was so much 
lower while the ice sheet was being melted away is 
proved by the occurrence of fossil molluscs of far north- 
ern range, including Yoldia (Leda) arctioa Gray, which 
is now found living only in arctic seas, where they re- 
ceive muddy streams from existing glaciers and from 
the Greenland ice sheet. This species is plentiful in 
the stratified clays resting on the till in the St. Law- 
rence Valley and in New Brunswick and Maine, extend- 
ing southward to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. But it 
is known that the land was elevated from this depres- 
sion to about its present height before the sea here be- 
came warm, and the southern molluscs, which exist as. 



PLEISTOCENE CHANGES OF LEVEL. 327 

colonies in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, migrated thither; 
for these southern species are not included in the exten- 
sive lists of the fossil fauna found in the beds overlying 
the till. 

In the St. Lawrence basin these marine deposits 
reach to the southern end of Lake Champlain, to Og- 
densburg, and Brockville, and at least to Pembroke 
and Allumette Island, in the Ottawa River, about 75 
miles above the city of Ottawa. The Isthmus of Chieg- 
necto, connecting Nova Scotia with New Brunswick, was 
submerged, and the sea extended 50 to 100 miles up the 
valleys of the chief rivers of Maine and New Brunswick. 

From the Champlain submergence attending the de- 
parture of the ice the land w T as raised somewhat higher 
than now, and its latest movement from New Jersey to 
southern Greenland has been a moderate depression. 
The vertical amount of this postglacial elevation above 
the present height and of the recent subsidence on all 
the coast of New Jersey, Long Island, New England, 
and the eastern provinces of Canada, is known to have 
ranged from 10 feet to a maximum of at least 80 feet at 
the head of the Bay of Fundy, as is attested in many 
places by stumps of forests, rooted where they grew, and 
by peat beds now submerged by the sea. 

At the time of final melting of the ice sheet this re- 
gion, which before the Ice Age had stood much higher 
than now, was depressed, and the maximum amount of 
its subsidence, as shown by marine fossils at Montreal 
and northwestward to Hudson Bay, was 500 to 600 feet, 
Subsequently our Atlantic coast has been re-elevated to 
a height probably 100 feet greater than now ; and dur- 
ing the recent epoch its latest oscillation has been again 
downward, as when it was ice-covered. The rate of de- 
pression since the discovery of America has probably 



328 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

averaged one to two feet in a hundred years along the 
distance from New Jersey to Nova Scotia. At the 
ruined fortress of Louisburg, in Cape Breton Island, 
the subsidence appears to have been at least four or five 
feet since the middle of the eighteenth century. At 
Lichtenfels (latitude G3°), in Greenland, according to 
the Danish surveys, the sinking of the land since 1789 
has amounted to six or eight feet. In the basin of 
Hudson Bay, however, the observations of Dr. Bell 
show that the re-elevation from the Champlain sub- 
mergence is still in progress, its rate, according to his 
estimate, reaching probably five to seven feet during 
each century. 

Turning to the glaciated regions of Europe, we find, 
as in North America, that the countries which were ice- 
covered had a much greater altitude before the ice accu- 
mulation, as shown by fiords. During the later part of 
the Tertiary era and up to the Glacial period the larger 
portion of the British Isles and all of Scandinavia 
suffered vast denudation, with erosion of fiords and 
channels that on the borders of Scotland and in the 
Hebrides are now submerged 500 to 800 feet beneath 
the sea. Much higher preglacial elevation is known for 
Scandinavia, the principal centre of outflow of the Eu- 
ropean icefields. Jamieson notes the depth of the 
Christiania Fiord as 1,380 feet, of the Hardanger Fiord 
2,624 feet, and of Sogne Fiord, the longest in Norway, 
4,080 feet,* 

Afterward, when the European ice sheet was being 
melted away, its area was mostly depressed somewhat 
below its present level. The supposed great submer- 
gence, however, up to 1,200 and 1,500 feet, or more, 

* Geol. Magazine, III, vcl. viii, pp. 387-392, September, 1891. 



PLEISTOCENE CHANGES OP LEVEL. 329 

which has been claimed by British geologists for north- 
ern Wales, northwestern England, and a part of Ireland, 
on the evidence of marine shells and fragments of shells 
in glacially transported deposits, is shown by Belt, 
Goodchild, Lewis, Kendall, and others, to be untenable. 
Indeed, these fossils, not lying in the place where they 
were living, give no proof of any depression of the land, 
since they have been brought by currents of the ice 
sheet moving across the bed of the Irish Sea. But it is 
clearly known by other evidence, as raised, beaches and 
fossiliferous marine sediments, that large areas of Great 
Britain and Ireland were slightly depressed under their 
burden of ice, and have been since uplifted to a vertical 
extent, ranging probably up to a maximum of about 300 
feet. 

In Scandinavia the valuable observations and studies 
of Baron Gerard de Geer have supplied lines of equal 
depression of the land at the time of the melting away 
of the ice. This region of greatest thickness of the 
European ice sheet is found to have been depressed to 
an increasing extent from the outer portions toward the 
interior. The lowest limit of the submergence, at the 
southern extremity of Sweden, is no more than 70 feet 
above the present sea level, and in northeastern Den- 
mark it diminishes to zero ; but northward it increases 
to an observed amount of about 800 feet on the western 
shore of the Gulf of Bothnia, near latitude 63°. Along 
the coast of Norway it ranges from 200 feet to nearly 
600 feet, excepting far northward, near North Cape, 
where it decreases to about 100 feet. In proportion 
with this observed range of the subsidence on the coast 
of Scandinavia, its amount in the centre of the country 
was probably 1,000 feet. 

A very interesting history of the postglacial oscilla- 



330 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

tions of southern Sweden has been also ascertained by 
Baron de Greer, which seems to be closely like the post- 
glacial movements of the northeastern border of North 
America. As on our Atlantic coast, the uplift from the 
Champlain submergence in that part of Sweden raised 
the country higher than now. The extent of this up- 
lift appears to have been about 100 feet on the area 
between Denmark and Sweden, closing the entrance to 
the Baltic Sea, which became for some time a great 
fresh-water lake. After this another depression of that 
region ensued, opening a deeper passage into the Baltic 
than now, giving to this body of brackish water a con- 
siderably higher degree of saltness than at present, with 
the admission of several marine molluscs, notably Lito- 
rina litorea L., which are found fossil in the beds 
formed during "this second and smaller submergence, but 
are not living in the Baltic to-day. Thus far the move- 
ments of southern Sweden are paralleled by the post- 
glacial oscillations of New England and eastern Canada, 
but a second uplifting of this part of Sweden is now 
taking place, whereas no corresponding movement has 
begun on our Atlantic border. It seems to be sug- 
gested, however, that it may yet ensue. The subsidence 
has ceased or become exceedingly slow in eastern New 
England, while it still continues at a measurable rate in 
New Jersey, Cape Breton Island, and southern Green- 
land. 

So extensive agreement on opposite sides of the At- 
lantic in the oscillations of the land while it was ice- 
covered, and since the departure of the ice sheets, has 
probably resulted from similar causes— namely, the 
pressure of the ice weight bearing down the land from 
its great preglacial altitude, and the resilience of the 
earth's crust from the subsidence when it was unbur- 



PLEISTOCENE CHANGES OF LEVEL. 331 

dened. The restoration of isostatic equilibrium in each 
country is attended by minor oscillations, the conditions 
requisite for repose being overpassed by the early re- 
elevation of outer portions of each of these great glaciated 
areas. 

In view of this harmony in the epeirogenic move- 
ments of the two continents during the Glacial and Re- 
cent periods, it seems evident that the close of the Ice 
Age was not long ago, geologically speaking, for equi- 
librium of the disturbed areas has not yet been restored. 
Furthermore, the close parallelism in the stages of prog- 
ress toward repose indicates nearly the same time for 
the end of the Glacial period on both continents, and 
approximate synchronism in the pendulumlike series of 
postglacial oscillations. 

The temperate Miocene climate of the arctic regions 
seems probably referable chiefly to a much freer oceanic 
circulation than now, permitting more of the warmth 
of the tropics to be carried by marine currents into the 
circumpolar area, which also may have had generally 
deeper seas and less land to be the gathering ground of 
ice sheets. In the ensuing Pliocene times the northern 
lands appear to have been gradually elevated and to 
have become continuous, before the Ice age, from North 
America across the area of the shallow Behring Sea and 
Strait to northern Asia, and from Norway across the 
now submarine Scandinavian plateau, as it has been 
called, having maximum depths of 1,500 to 1,700 feet, 
to the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland. 

If we refer the erosion of the channels of Baffin Bay 
and the arctic archipelago w r est of Greenland to late 
Miocene and early Pliocene time, that extensive tract may 
well have subsided to its present height, or lower, pro- 
ducing the continuous water area of Baffin Bay, Smith 



332 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

Sound, and Kennedy and Eobeson Channels, before the 
late Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs of a nearly uni- 
form circumpolar flora and fauna, which present, how- 
ever, a considerable contrast, as was noted in foregoing 
chapters, on the opposite sides of Baffin Bay. Previous 
to the general Champlain subsidence of the northern 
ice-burdened lands, by which the reign of cold and ice 
in now temperate latitudes was brought rapidly to an 
end, and, indeed, previous to the Ice age itself, but 
after the water barrier of Baffin Bay existed, the hardier 
plants of Scandinavia and certain species of the land 
animals, bird-s, and insects of northern Europe had mi- 
grated across the now submerged plateau to Greenland, 
giving the remarkable Eurojoean affinities of its flora 
and fauna. 

Many species of plants and animals, probably includ- 
ing the reindeer and musk ox, survived even through 
the Glacial period on the low shore lines and the high 
nunataks of Greenland, which did not become wholly 
ice enveloped. In later times, since the icefields have 
been restricted on their borders, these hardy representa- 
tives of the richer preglacial fauna and flora have, in 
many instances, extended their range along the yet par- 
tially icebound coasts of Greenland, both around its 
northern and southern ends ; and the Eskimos have 
come to share with the reindeer, seals, and polar bear 
the stern wintry climate of this mountain-girdled, icy 
land. 

The native American peoples, now generally consid- 
ered a division of the Mongolian race, appear to have 
migrated to our continent' from northeastern Asia dur- 
ing the early Quaternary time of general uplift of 
northern regions which immediately preceded the Ice 
age. Then land undoubtedly extended across the pres- 



PLEISTOCENE CHANGES OF LEVEL. 333 

ent area of Behring Sea. The width of Behring Strait 
is only 28 miles, and its greatest depth is only 170 feet. 
Northward from this strait the Arctic Ocean is very 
shallow, and the 40-fathom or 240-foot submarine con- 
tour line is first reached at a distance of 400 to 500 
miles. Similarly, on the south, the 40-fathom contour 
lies about 500 miles distant from the strait, passing close 
south of the Pribilof Islands ; but southwestward from 
Behring Strait this line is reached at a distance of 250 
miles. This large area of shallow sea was probably all 
land in the early Pleistocene or Lafayette epoch of gen- 
eral northern land elevation. During the Postglacial 
period, however, since the culmination of the Cham- 
plain subsidence, the region of Behring Strait, accord- 
ing to Dall, has undergone considerable re- elevation, so 
that the water there is now shallower than in the Cham- 
plain epoch. The many divergent branches of the 
American peoples, and their remarkable progress toward 
civilization in Mexico, Central America, and Peru, be- 
fore the discovery by Columbus, indicate for this division 
of mankind probably almost as great antiquity as in the 
eastern hemisphere, where many lines of evidence point 
to the origin and dispersion of men at a time far longer 
ago than the 6,000 to 10,000 years which measure the 
Postglacial period. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE CAUSES OF THE ICE AGE. 

What were the causes of the accumulation of the ice 
sheets of the Glacial period? Upon their areas warm 
or at least temperate climates had prevailed during 
long foregoing geologic ages, and again at the present 
time they have mostly mild and temperate conditions. 
The Pleistocene continental glaciers of North America, 
Europe, and Patagonia have disappeared ; and the later 
and principal part of their melting was very rapid, as 
is known by various features of the contemporaneous 
glacial and modified drift deposits, and by the beaches 
and deltas of temporary lakes that were formed by the 
barrier of the receding ice sheets. Can the conditions 
and causes be found which first amassed the thick and 
vastly extended sheets of land ice, and whose cessation 
suddenly permitted the ice to be quickly melted away? 

Two classes of theories have been presented in an- 
swer to these questions. In one class, which we will 
first consider, are the explanations of the climate of the 
Ice Age through astronomic or cosmic causes, compris- 
ing all changes in the earth's astronomic relationship to 
the heat of space and of the sun. The second class 
embraces terrestrial or geologic causes, as changes of 
areas of land and sea, of oceanic currents, and altitudes 
of continents, while otherwise the earth's relations to 
external sources of heat are supposed to have been prac- 

384 



THE CAUSES OF THE ICE AGE. 335 

tically as now, or not to have entered as important 
factors in the problem. 

It has been suggested that, as the sun and his planets 
are believed to be moving forward together through 
space, the Glacial period may mark a portion of the 
pathway of the solar system where less heat was sup- 
plied from the stars than along the earlier and later 
parts of this pathway. To this suggestion it is sufficient 
to reply, that the researches of Prof. S. P. Langley, now 
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, show that at 
the present time no appreciable measure of heat comes 
to us in that way, and that probably not so much as 
one degree of the average temperature of the earth's 
climates was ever, within geologic times, so received 
from all other sources besides the sun and the earth's 
own internal heat. Concerning the latter, also, it is 
well ascertained that during at least the Mesozoic, Ter- 
tiary, and Quaternary eras it has affected the climatic 
average by no more than a small fraction of a degree. 

Others have suggested that the sun's heat has varied, 
and that the Ice Age was a time of diminished solar 
radiation. To this we must answer that during the 
centuries of written history, and especially during the 
past century of critical investigations in terrestrial and 
solar physics, no variations of this kind have been dis- 
covered. Such a cause of the glacial accumulations 
would have enveloped Alaska and Siberia with ice sheets 
and their drift deposits. The anomalous geographic 
distribution of the drift forbids this hypothesis. 

Among all the theories of the causes of the Glacial 
period, the one which has attracted the most attention, 
not only of geologists but also of physicists and astron- 
omers, was thought out by Dr. James Croll, and pub- 
lished in magazine articles during the years 1864 to 
23 



336 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

1874, and is most fully stated in his work entitled 
Climate and Time (1875). Dr. CrolPs theory, which 
also has been very ably advocated by Prof. James Geikie 
in The Great Ice Age (1874, 1877, and 1894), and by 
Sir Robert S. Ball in The Cause of an Ice Age (1891), 
attributes the accumulation of ice sheets to recurrent 
astronomic cycles which bring the winters of each polar 
hemisphere of the earth alternately into aphelion and 
perihelion each 21,000 years during the periods of maxi- 
mum eccentricity of the earth's orbit. Its last period 
of this kind was from about 240,000 to 80,000 years ago, 
allowing room for seven or eight such cycles and alter- 
nations of glacial and interglacial conditions. The 
supposed evidence of interglacial epochs, therefore, gave 
to this theory a wide credence ; but the uniqueness of 
the Glacial period in the long geologic record, and the 
recent determinations of the geologic brevity of the time 
since the ice sheets disappeared from North America 
and Europe, make it clear, in the opinions even of some 
geologists who believe in a duality or plurality of Qua- 
ternary glacial epochs, that not astronomic but geo- 
graphic causes produced the Ice Age. From the 
meteorologists' standpoint this astronomic explanation 
of a formerly glacial climate in now temperate latitudes 
has been alternately defended and denied, just as geolo- 
gists have been divided in respect to its applicability to 
the history of the Glacial period. 

Many eminent glacialists, as James Geikie, Wahn- 
schaffe, Penck, De Geer, Chamberlin, Salisbury, Shaler, 
McGee, and others, believe that the Ice Age was com- 
plex, having two, three, or more epochs of glaciation, 
divided by long interglacial epochs of mild and tem- 
perate climate, when the ice sheets were entirely or 
mainly melted away. Prof. Geikie claims six distinct 



THE CAUSES OF THE ICE AGE. 337 

glacial epochs, as indicated by fossiliferous beds lying 
between deposits of till or nnstratified glacial drift, and 
by other evidences of great climatic changes. Mr. 
McGee, in the United States, recognises at least three 
glacial epochs. On the other hand, the reference of all 
the glacial drift to a single epoch of glaciation, with 
moderate oscillations of- retreat and readvance of the 
ice border, is thought more probable by Dana, Hitch- 
cock, and the present authors in America, Prestwich, 
Lamplugh, and Kendale in England, Falsan in France, 
Hoist in Sweden, and Nikitin in Eussia. The argu- 
ments supporting this opinion are set forth by Prof. G. 
F. Wright in The Ice Age in North America (1889) and 
Man and the Glacial Period (1892), and especially in 
articles in the American Journal of Science for Novem- 
ber, 1892, and March, 1894. 

In accordance w 7 ith Dr. Croll's astronomic theory, 
glacial periods would be expected to recur with geologic 
frequency, whenever the earth's orbit attained a stage 
of maximum eccentricity, during the very long Tertiary 
and Mesozoic eras, which together were probably a hun- 
dred times as long as the Quaternary era in which the 
Ice Age occurred. But we have no evidence of any 
Tertiary or Mesozoic period of general glaciation in 
circumpolar and temperate regions, although high 
mountain groups or ranges are known to have had local 
glaciers. Not until we go back to the Permian period, 
closing the Palseozoic era, are numerous and widely dis- 
tributed proofs of very ancient glaciation encountered. 
Boulder-bearing deposits, sometimes closely resembling 
till and including striated stones, while the underlying 
rock also occasionally bears glacial grooves and striae, 
are found in the Carboniferous or more frequently the 
Permian series in Britain, France, and Germany, Natal, 



338 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

India, an'd southeastern Australia. In Natal the stri- 
ated glacier floor is in latitude 30° south, and in India 
only 20° north of the equator. During all the earth's 
history previous to the Ice Age, which constitutes its 
latest completed chapter, no other such distinct evidences 
of general or interrupted and alternating glaciation have 
been found; and just then, in close relationship with 
extensive and repeated oscillations of the land, and with 
widely distant glacial deposits and striation, we find a 
most remarkable epoch of mountain-building, surpassing 
any other time between the close of the Archaean era 
and the Quaternary. 

Alfred Russel Wallace therefore concludes, in his 
work on Island Life, that eccentricity of the earth's 
orbit, though tending to produce a glacial period, is 
insufficient without the concurrence of high uplifts of 
the areas glaciated. He thinks that the time of in- 
creased eccentricity 240,000 to 80,000 years ago was 
coincident with great altitude of northwestern Europe, 
North America, and Patagonia, which consequently be- 
came covered by ice sheets ; but that such previous 
times of eccentricity, not being favoured by geographic 
conditions, were not attended by glaciation. The re- 
centness of the Ice Age, however, seems to demonstrate 
that eccentricity was not its primary cause, and to bring 
doubt that it has exerted any determining influence in 
producing unusual severity of cold either during the 
Pleistocene or any former period. 

In various localities we are able to measure the pres- 
ent rate of erosion of gorges below waterfalls ; and the 
length of the postglacial gorge, divided by the rate of 
recession of the falls, gives approximately the time since 
the Ice Age. Such measurements of the gorge and Falls 
of St. Anthony by Prof. N. H. Winchell show the length 



THE CAUSES OF THE ICE AGE. 339 

of the Postglacial or Recent period to have been about 
8,000 years ; and from the surveys of Niagara Falls, Mr. 
G. K. Gilbert estimated it to have been 7,000 years, more 
or less. From the rates of wave-cutting along the sides 
of Lake Michigan and the consequent accumulation of 
sand around the south end of the lake, Dr. E. Andrews 
computed that the land there became uncovered from its 
ice sheet not more than 7,500 years ago. Prof. G. F. 
Wriarht obtains a similar result from the rate of fillino; 
of kettle-holes among the gravel knolls and ridges called 
kames and eskers, and likewise from the erosion of val- 
leys by streams tributary to Lake Erie ; and Prof. B. K. 
Emerson, from the rate of deposition of modified drift 
in the Connecticut Valley, at Northampton, Mass., 
thinks that the time since the Glacial period can not 
exceed 10,000 years. An equally small estimate is also 
indicated by the studies of Gilbert and Russell for the 
time since the last great rise of the Quaternary Lakes 
Bonneville and Lahontan, lying in L T tah and Nevada, 
within the arid Great Basin of interior drainage, which 
are believed to have been contemporaneous with the 
great extension of ice sheets upon the northern part of 
the North American continent. 

Prof. James Geikie maintains that the use of palaeo- 
lithic implements had ceased, and that early man in 
Europe made neolithic (polished) implements, before 
the recession of the ice sheet from Scotland, Denmark, 
and the Scandinavian peninsula ; and Prestwich sug- 
gests that the dawn of civilization in Egypt, China, and 
India may have been coeval with the'glaciation of north- 
western Europe. In Wales and Yorkshire the amount 
of denudation of limestone rocks on which drift boul- 
ders lie has been regarded by Mr. D. Mackintosh as 
proof that a period of not more than 0,000 years has 



340 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

elapsed since the boulders were left in their positions. 
The vertical extent of this denudation, averaging about 
six inches, is nearly the same with that observed in the 
southwest part of the Province of Quebec by Sir Wil- 
liam Logan and Dr. Eobert Bell, where veins of quartz, 
marked with glacial striae, stand out to various heights 
not exceeding one foot above the weathered surface of 
the inclosing limestone. 

From this wide range of concurrent but indej^endeut 
testimonies, we accept it as practically demonstrated 
that the ice sheets disappeared only 0,000 to 10,000 
years ago. It is therefore manifestly impossible to as- 
cribe their existence to astronomic causes which ceased 
80,000 years ago, as is done by Croll's theory. Instead, 
we may believe, with Prestwich, that the Ice Age not 
only terminated, but began, after the end of the last 
period of maximum eccentricity of the earth's revolu- 
tion around the sun. 

Another astronomic theory, which assigns a date and 
duration of the Glacial period from about 24,000 to 
6,000 years ago, agreeing nearly with Prestwich's esti- 
mate of its time, has been brought forward by Major- 
General A. W. Dray son, who first published it in the 
Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 
for 1871, and latest in a volume entitled Untrodden 
Ground in Astronomy and Geology (1890). This theo- 
ry asserts that the earth's axis during a cycle of about 
31,000 years varies 12° in its inclination to the -plane of 
the ecliptic or path of the earth around the sun. In 
this long cycle the axis and poles of the earth are 
thought to describe a circle in the heavens, with its 
centre 6° from the pole of the ecliptic. At present the 
obliquity of the ecliptic or angle between its plane and 
that of the earth's equator is about 23-J°, which, there- 



THE CAUSES OF THE ICE AGE. 341 

fore, is the distance of the arctic and antarctic circles 
from the poles ; and this, according to Drayson's com- 
putations, is nearly their minimum distance. He claims 
that this obliquity of the ecliptic, which gives the dis- 
tance of the arctic circles from the poles and of the 
tropics from the equator, about 5,000 years ago was 
some 2° more than now ; that 7,500 years ago it was 
increased 6^° more than at present; that its maximum, 
nearly 12° more than at present, was about 13,500 B. c. ; 
and that the beginning of this latest cycle of variation 
in the widths of the intertropical and polar zones was 
about 31,000 years ago. During the middle portion of 
the cycle, Drayson affirms that the arctic circle reached 
approximately to 54° north latitude, and that the result- 
ing climatic changes caused the Ice Age. 

It is true that the obliquity of the ecliptic varies 
slightly, and is at present decreasing about an eightieth 
part of a degree in 100 years. Sir John Herschel com- 
puted, however, that its limit of variation during the 
last 100,000 years has not exceeded 1° 21' from its 
mean, although for a longer time in the past, as mil- 
lions of years, it may range three or four degrees on each 
side of the mean. The portion of the present cycle of 
variation, which is used as the basis of this theory, seems 
insufficient to establish its conclusion of a wide range 
of obliquity; but, even if this were true, the same argu- 
ments forbid its application to account for the Glacial 
period as are urged by Gilbert, Chamberlin, and Le 
Conte in their dissent from CrolPs theory.* These ob- 
jections consist in the absence of evidence of glaciation 
during the long history of the earth previous to the Ice 
Age, excepting near the end of Palaeozoic time, and the 

* The Ice Age in North America, pp. 439, 440. 



342 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS, 

unsynimetric geographic areas of the ice sheets, northern 
Asia and Alaska having not been ice-enveloped. Ac- 
cording to Drayson, astronomic conditions capable of 
producing an ice age have recurred every 31,000 years; 
but geologists have recognised no other time of glacia- 
tion of large areas besides the Quaternary and Palaeozoic 
ice ages, which were divided probably by 10,000,000 or 
15,000,000 years. 

A third and much different theory, dependent on 
the earth's astronomic relationship, is the suggestion 
first made in 1866 by Sir John Evans, that, while the 
earth's axis probably remained unchanged in its direc- 
tion, a comparatively thin crust of the earth may have 
gradually slipped as a whole upon the much larger nu- 
cleal mass so that the locations of the poles upon the 
crust have been changed, and that the Glacial period 
may have been due to such a slipping or transfer by 
which the regions that became ice-covered were brought 
very near to the poles.* The same or a very similar 
view has been recently advocated by Dr. Fridtjof Nan- 
sen, who writes : " The easiest method of explaining a 
glacial epoch, as well as the occurrence of warmer cli- 
mates in one latitude or another, is to imagine a slight 
change in the geographical position of the earth's axis. 
If, for instance, we could move the north pole down to 
some point near the west coast of Greenland, between 
60° and 65° north latitude, we could, no doubt, produce 
a glacial period both in Europe and America." f 

Very small changes of latitude which had been de- 
tected at astronomical observatories in England, Ger- 



* Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, vol. xv, pp. 46- 
54, February 28, 1866. 

f The First Crossing of Greenland (1890), vol. ii, p. 454. 



THE CAUSES OF THE ICE AGE. 343 

many, Russia, and the United States, seemed to give 
some foundation for this theory, which in 1891 was re- 
garded by a few American glacialists as worthy of atten- 
tion and of special investigation by astronomers, with 
temporary establishment of new observatories for this 
purpose on a longitude about 180° from Greenwich or 
from Washington. During the year 1892, however, the 
brilliant discoveries by Dr. S. 0. Chandler of the pe- 
riods and amounts of the observed variations of lati- 
tude, showing them to be in two cycles (respectively of 
twelve and fourteen months), with no appreciable secu- 
lar change, forbid reliance on this condition as a cause, 
or even as an element among the causes, of the Ice Age. 
This theory is now entirely out of the field. Sir Robert 
S. Ball, after reviewing Dr. Chandler's investigations, 
estimates that the place of the pole since the Glacial 
period, and from even earlier geologic times, has been 
without greater changes of position than would lie in- 
side the area of a block or square inclosed by the inter- 
secting streets of a city. 

The most recent mathematical investigation of the 
effects of the unequal amounts of solar heat received by 
different portions of the earth's surface, under varying 
astronomic conditions, was published last year by Dr. 
George F. Becker, of the United States Geological Sur- 
vey, who sums up his results, differing antipodally from 
the views of the late Dr. Croll, as follows : * 

•I began this inquiry without the remotest idea as to what con- 
clusion would be reached. At the end of it I feel compelled to 
assert that the combination of low eccentricity and high obliquity 
will promote the accumulation of glacial ice in high latitudes 
more than any other set of circumstances pertaining to the earth's 
orbit. It seems to me that the glacial age may be due to these 

* Am. Jour. Sci., Ill, vol. xlviii, pp. 95-113, August, 1894. 



344: GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

conditions in combination with a favourable disposition of land 
and water. This theory implies, or rather does not exclude, simul- 
taneous glaciation in both hemispheres. It does not imply that 
the ice age should last only ten or twelve thousand years. If the 
conditions here suggested are correct, variations in the disposition 
of land and water may have determined intervals of glaciation, 
not necessarily the same ones in New England and the basin of 
the Mississippi ; and there may have been considerable time 
differences in the inception or the cessation of glaciation in vari- 
ous regions. It is not needful to assume that the glaciation of 
the Sierra Nevada either began or ended synchronously with the 
ice age in New England. The date at which a minimum of ec- 
centricity last coincided with a maximum of obliquity can almost 
certainly be determined. According to Stockwell, the obliquity 
has been diminishing for the past 8,000 years, and was within 21 
minutes of its maximum value at the beginning of that time. 
According to Leverrier, the eccentricity passed through a mini- 
mum 40,000 years ago, the value being then about two thirds of 
the present one. So far as I know, the obliquity has not been 
computed beyond 8,000. This can of course be done for Stock- 
, well's value of the masses of the planets, or for newer and better 
ones. All the indications seem to be that within thirty or forty 
thousand years conditions have occurred, and have persisted for a 
considerable number of thousand years, which would favour gla- 
ciation on the theory of this paper. 

We come now to the wholly terrestrial or geologic 
theory of the causes of the Ice Age, which, in terms 
varying with increasing knowledge, has been successively 
advocated by Lyell, Dana, Le Conte, and others, includ- 
ing the authors of the present volume. According to 
this explanation, the accumulation of the ice sheets was 
due to uplifts of the land as extensive high plateaus, re- 
ceiving snowfall throughout the year. It may therefore 
be very properly named the epeirogenic theory. 

In the first edition of the Principles of Geology 
(1830), Lyell pointed out the intimate dependence of 
climate upon the distribution of areas of land and water 



THE CAUSES OF THE ICE AGE. 345 

and upon the altitude of the land. In 1855, Dana, rea- 
soning from the prevalence of fiords in all glaciated 
regions, and showing that these are valleys eroded by 
streams during a formerly greater elevation of the land 
previous to glaciation, and from the marine beds of the 
St. Lawrence Valley and basin of Lake Champlain be- 
longing to the time immediately following the glacia- 
tion, announced that the formation of the drift in North 
America was attended by three great continental move- 
ments : the first upward, during which the ice sheet 
was accumulated on the land; the second downward, 
when the ice sheet was melted away ; and the third, 
within recent time, a re-elevation, bringing the land to 
its present height. But with the moderate depth of the 
fiords and submarine valleys then known, the amount of 
preglacial elevation which could be thus affirmed was 
evidently too little to be an adequate cause for the cold 
and snowy climate producing the ice sheet. The belief 
that this uplift was 3,000 feet or more, giving sufficiently 
cool climate, as Prof. T. G. Bonney has shown, to cause 
the ice accumulation, has been reached only within the 
past few years through the discovery by soundings of 
the United States Coast Survey, that on both the Atlan- 
tic and Pacific coasts of the United States submarine 
valleys, evidently eroded in late Tertiary and Quaternary 
time, reach to profound depths — 2,000 to 3,000 feet 
below the present sea level. 

The evidence of this great preglacial epeirogenic up- 
lift, both for North America and Europe, has been 
stated in the preceding chapter. Just the same high 
preglacial elevation and Late Glacial or Champlain sub- 
sidence, with recent re-elevation, are known also for 
Patagonia by its abundant and deep fiords and by its 
marine beds overlying the glacial drift to heights of sev- 



346 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

eral hundred feet above the sea, as described by Darwin 
and Agassiz. On these three continental areas the 
widely separated, chief drift-bearing regions of the earth 
are found to have experienced, in connection with their 
glaciation, in each case three great epeirogenic move- 
ments of similar character and sequence — first, a com- 
paratively long-continued uplift, which in its culmina- 
tion appears to have given a high plateau climate with 
abundant snowfall, forming an ice sheet, whose duration 
extended until the land sank somewhat lower than now, 
leading to amelioration of the climate and the departure 
of the ice, followed by re-elevation to the present level. 
The coincidence of these great earth movements with 
glaciation naturally leads to the conviction that they 
were the direct and sufficient cause of the ice sheets and 
of their disappearance ; and this conclusion is confirmed 
by the insufficiency and failure of the other theories 
which have been advanced to account for the Glacial 
period. 

The end of the Tertiary era and the subsequent La- 
fayette, Glacial, and Eecent periods, have been excep- 
tionally characterized by many great oscillations of con- 
tinental and insular land areas. Where movements of 
land elevation have taken place in high latitudes, either 
north or south, which received abundant precipitation 
of moisture, ice sheets were formed ; and the weight of 
these ice sheets seems to have been a chief cause, and 
often probably the only cause, of the subsidence of these 
lands and the disappearance of their ice. 

Between epochs of widely extended mountain-build- 
ing by plication the diminution of the earth's mass pro-" 
duces epeirogenic distortion of the crust, by the elevation 
of certain large areas and the depression of others, with 
resulting inequalities of pressure upon different portions 



THE CAUSES OF THE ICE AGE. 347 

of the interior ; and these effects have been greatest im- 
mediately before relief has been given by the formation 
of folded mountain ranges. There have been two epochs 
pre-eminently distinguished by extensive mountain pli- 
cation, one occurring at the close of the Palaeozoic era, 
and another progressing through the Tertiary and cul- 
minating in the Quaternary era, introducing the Ice 
Age. With the culminations of both of these great 
epochs of mountain-building, so widely separated by the 
Mesozoic and Tertiary eras, glaciation has been remark- 
ably associated, and, indeed, the ice accumulation ap- 
pears to have been caused by the epeirogenic and oro- 
genic uplifts of continental plateaus and mountain 
ranges. * The earth's surface is probably now made 
much more varied, beautiful, and grand by the exist- 
ence of many lofty mountain ranges than has been its 
average condition during the past long eras; but the 
magnificent Pleistocene icefields and glaciers have van- 
ished, or are much diminished, excepting only in Green- 
land and on the antarctic continent. 

* For a more extended discussion of the relationship of the 
earth's cooling and contraction, with movements of continental 
and mountain uplifts, and with the accumulation of ice sheets, 
see an appendix on Probable Causes of Glaciation, in Wright's Ice 
Age in North America, pp. 573-595. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

STAGES OF THE ICE AGE IN" NORTH AMERICA AND 
EUROPE. 

From the consideration of the movements of uplift 
and subsidence of the lands on both sides of the North 
Atlantic Ocean, which are believed to have caused the 
envelopment of vast areas of these continents by ice 
sheets like those now covering Greenland and the ant- 
arctic continent, we can advance to a completion of 
our review of the Glacial period by noticing the several 
stages of this period and the sequence of its history as 
revealed by its marginal moraines and other drift de- 
posits. Exploration of the European glacial drift by 
two Americans, Prof. H. Carvill Lewis in the British 
Kles and Prof. R. D. Salisbury in Germany, less than 
ten years ago, laid the foundations for determining the 
geologic equivalency of the successive parts of the drift 
series in North America and Europe. Salisbury espe- 
cially noted that the marginal moraines of northern 
Germany lie, as in the United States, at some distance 
back from the limits of the drift. 

Studies by many observers have shown that on both 
continents the border of the drift along the greater part 
of its extent was laid down as a gradually attenuated 
sheet ; that the ice retreated and the drift endured much 
subaerial erosion and denudation ; that renewed accu- 
mulation and growth of the ice sheet, but mostly with- 

348 



STAGES OF THE ICE AGE. 349 

out extending to its earlier limits, were followed by a 
general depression of these burdened lands, after which 
the ice again retreated, apparently at a much faster rate 
than before, with great supplies of loess from the waters 
of its melting ; that moderate re-elevation ensued ; and 
that during the farther retreat of the ice sheet promi- 
nent moraines were amassed in many irregular but 
roughly parallel belts, where the front at successive 
times paused or readvanced under secular variations in 
the prevailingly temperate and even warm climate, by 
which, between the times of formation of the moraines, 
the ice was rapidly melted away. 

Such likeness in the sequence of glacial conditions 
probably implies contemporaneous stages in the glacia- 
tion of the two continents ; and the present authors 
believe that it is rather to be interpreted as a series of 
phases in the work of a single ice sheet on each area 
than as records of several separated and independent 
epochs of glaciation, differing widely from one another 
in their methods of depositing drift. The latter view, 
however, is held by James Geikie, Penck, De Geer, and 
others in Europe; and it has been regarded as the more 
probable also for America by Chamberlin, Salisbury, 
McGee, and others. 

Under this view Geikie distinguishes no less than 
eleven stages or epochs, glacial and interglacial, which 
he has very recently named,* since the publication last 
year of the new edition of his Great Ice Age, in which, 
however, they were fully described. These divisions of 
the Glacial period are as follows : 1, The Scanian or 
first glacial epoch ; 2, The JNTorfolkian or first inter- 
glacial epoch ; 3, The Saxonian or second glacial epoch ; 

* Journal of Geology, vol. iii, pp. 241-269, April-May, 1895. 



350 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

4, The Helvetian or second interglacial epoch ; 5, The 
Polandian or third glacial epoch ; 6, The Neucleckian 
or third interglacial epoch ; 7, The Mecklenburgian or 
fourth glacial epoch ; 8, The Lower Forestian or fourth 
interglacial epoch; 9, The Lower Turbarian or fifth 
glacial epoch ; 10, The Upper Forestian or fifth inter- 
glacial epoch ; and, 11, The Upper Turbarian or sixth 
glacial epoch. 

The earliest application of such geographic names 
to the successive stages and formations of the Ice Age 
appears to be that of Chamberlin in his two chapters 
contributed to the new third edition of Geikie's admi- 
rable work before mentioned, in which he names the 
Kansan, East Iowan, and East Wisconsin formations. 
For the second and third he has since adopted the 
shorter names, Iowan and Wisconsin. This classifica- 
tion he has also more recently extended, the interglacial 
stage and deposits between the Kansan and Iowan gla- 
cial drift or till formations being named Aftonian, and 
the Toronto interglacial formation, previously named, 
being referred, with some doubt, to an interval between 
the Iowan and Wisconsin stages. Chamberlin correlates, 
with a good degree of confidence, his Kansan stage of 
maximum North American glaciation with the maxi- 
mum in Europe, which is Geikie's Saxonian epoch ; the 
Aftonian stage as Geikie's Helvetian ; the Iowan as the 
European Polandian ; and the Wisconsin or moraine- 
forming stage of the United States as the Mecklenburg- 
ian, whicli was the stage of the " great Baltic Glacier " 
and its similarly well- developed moraines.* 

According to the law of priority, the names of the 
Kansan, Iowan, and Wisconsin formations and stages 



* Journal of Geology, vol. iii, pp. 270-277, April-May, 1895. 



STAGES OP THE ICE AGE. 351 

should also be applied to these European divisions of 
the Glacial series, for the studies of Geikie and Cham- 
berlin show them to be in all probability correlative and 
contemporaneous. Figures 57 and 58 therefore employ 
these names for both our own continent and Europe, 
giving the boundaries of these formations as mapped in 
the Great Ice Age, and adding for the northeastern 
United States and Canada the Warren, Toronto, Iro- 
quois, and St. Lawrence stages in the glacial recession, 
nearly as indicated in a recent article on the glacial 
representatives of the Laurentian lakes and on the Late 
Glacial or Champlain subsidence and re-elevation of the 
St. Lawrence river basin.* 

Differing much from the opinions of Geikie, and less 
widely from those of Chamberlin, concerning the im- 
portance, magnitude, and duration of the interglacial 
stages, but agreeing with Dana, Hitchcock, Kendall, 
Falsan, Hoist, Mkitin, and others, in regarding the Ice 
Age as continuous, with fluctuations but not complete 
departure of the ice sheets, our view of the history of 
the Glacial period, comprising the Glacial epoch of ice 
accumulation and the Champlain epoch of ice departure, 
may be concisely presented in the following somewhat 
tabular form. The order is that of the advancing 
sequence in time, opposite to the downward strati- 
graphic order of the glacial, fluvial, lacustrine, and 
marine deposits. 



* American Journal of Science, III, vol. xlix, pp. 1-18, with 
map, by Warren Upham, January, 1895. Mr. Upham's first essay 
toward the discrimination of the two chief epochs and the suc- 
cessive stages of the Ice Age, as recognisable alike in North Amer- 
ica and Europe, was given in the American Naturalist, vol. xxix, 
pp. 235-241, March, 1895. 

24 



352 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

Epochs and Stages of the Glacial Period. 

I. The Glacial Epoch. 

1. The Culmination of the Lafayette Epei- 
rogenic Uplift, affecting both North America and 
Europe, raised the glaciated areas to so high altitudes 
that they received snow throughout the year, and be- 
came deeply ice-enveloped. Valleys and fiords show 
that this elevation was 1,000 to 4,000 feet above the 
present height. 

Eudely chipped stone implements and human bones 
in the plateau gravel of southern England, 90 feet and 
higher above the Thames, and the similar traces of man in 
high terraces of the Somme valley, attest man's existence 
there before the maximum stages of the uplift and of 
the Ice Age. America also had been already peopled, 
doubtless by preglacial migration from Asia across a 
land area in the place of the present shallow Behring Sea. 

The accumulation of the ice sheets, due to snowfall 
upon their entire areas, was attended by fluctuations of 
their gradually extending boundaries, giving the Scanian 
and Norfolkian stages in Europe, the Albertan forma- 
tion of very early glacial drift and accompanying gravels, 
recently described by Dr. George M. Dawson, in Alberta 
and the Saskatchewan district of western Canada, and 
an early glacial advance, recession, and readvance, in 
the region of the Moose and Albany Eivers, southwest of 
Hudson Bay. In that region, and westward on the 
Canadian plains to the Rocky Mountains, there seem to 
be thus three stages recognisable in the glacial results 
of the epeirogenic uplift, namely, the Albertan Stage 
of early ice accumulation, the Saskatchewan Stage 
of abundant melting and considerable retreat, and the 



354 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

ensuing great Kansan growth of the continental ice- 
fields. 

2. Kansan Stage. — Farthest extent of the ice 
sheet in the Missouri and Mississippi river basins, and 
in northern New Jersey. The Saxonian stage of maxi- 
mum glaciation in Europe. 

Area of the North American ice sheet, with its de- 
velopment on the arctic archipelago, about 4,000,000 
square miles ; of the Greenland ice sheet, then some- 
what more extended than now, 700,000 square miles or 
more, probably connected over Grinnell Land and Elles- 
mere Land with the continental ice sheet, the area of 
Greenland being approximately 680,000 square miles, 
and of its present ice sheet 575,000 square miles ; of the 
European ice sheet, with its tracts now occupied by the 
White, Baltic, North, and Irish Seas, about 2,000,000 
square miles. 

Thickness of the ice in northern New England and 
in central British Columbia, about one mile ; on the 
Laurentide highlands, probably two miles; in Green- 
land, as now, probably one mile or more, with its surface 
8,000 to 10,000 feet above the sea ; in portions of Scot- 
land and Sweden, and over the basin of the Baltic Sea, 
half a mile to a mile. 

3. Helvetian or Aftonian Stage. — Recession of 
the ice sheet from its Kansan boundary northward 
about 500 miles to Barnes ville, Minn., in the Red River 
Valley ; 250 miles or more in Illinois, according to 
Leverett, but probably little between the Scioto River, 
in Ohio, and the Atlantic coast, the maximum retreat 
of that portion being 25 miles or more in New Jersey. 
A cool temperate climate and coniferous forests up to 
the receding ice border in the upper Mississippi region. 
Much erosion of the early drift. 



STAGES OF THE ICE AGE. 355 

The greater part of the drift area in Eussia perma- 
nently relinquished by the much-diminished ice sheet, 
which also retreated considerably on all its sides. 

During this stage the two continents probably re- 
tained mainly a large part of their preglacial altitude. 
The glacial recession may have been caused by the astro- 
nomic cycle which brought our winters of the northern 
hemisphere in perihelion between 25,000 and 15,000 
years ago.* 

4. Iowan Stage. — Renewed ice accumulation, cover- 
ing the Af Ionian forest beds, and extending again into 
Iowa, to a distance of 350 miles or more from its most 
northern indentation by the Aftonian retreat, and re- 
advancing about 150 miles in Illinois, while its bound- 
ary eastward from Ohio probably remained with little 
change. 

The Polandian stage of renewed growth of the 
European ice sheet, probably advancing its boundaries 
in some portions hundreds of miles from the Helvetian 
retreat. 

II. The Champlain Epoch. 

5 Ohamplatn Subsidence ; Neudeckian Stage. 
— Depression of the ice-burdened areas mostly some- 
what below their present heights, as shown by fossil- 
iferous marine beds overlying the glacial drift up to 300 
feet above the sea in Maine, 560 feet at Montreal, 300 
to 400 feet from south to north in the basin of Lake 
Ohamplain, 300 to 500 feet southwest of Hudson and 
James Bays, and similar or less altitudes on the coasts 
of British Columbia, the British Isles, Germany, Scandi- 
navia, and Spitzbergen. 

* American Geologist, vol. xv, pp. 201, 255, and 293, March, 
April, and May, 1895. 



356 



GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 



Glacial recession from the Iowan boundaries was 
rapid under the temperate (and in summers warm or 
hot) climate, belonging to the more southern parts of 




the drift-bearing areas when reduced from their great 
preglacial elevation to their present height or lower. 
The finer portion of the englacial drift, swept down 



STAGES OF THE ICE AGE. 357 

from the icefields by the abundant waters of their melt- 
ing and of rains, was spread on the lower lands and 
along valleys in front of the departing ice, as the loess 
of the Missouri, the Mississippi, and the Rhine. Ma- 
rine beds reaching to a maximum height of about 375 
feet at Neudeck, in western Prussia, give the name of 
this stage. 

6. Wisconsin Stage. — Moderate re-elevation of 
the land, in the northern United States and Canada 
advancing as a permanent wave from south to north 
and northeast ; continued retreat of the ice along most 
of its extent, but its maximum advance in southern 
New England, with fluctuations and the formation of 
prominent marginal moraines ; great glacial lakes on 
the northern borders of the United States. 

The Mecklenburgian stage in Europe. Conspicu- 
ous moraine accumulations in Sweden, Denmark, Ger- 
many, and Finland, on the southern and eastern mar- 
gins of the great Baltic glacier. No extensive glacial 
readvance between the Iowan and Wisconsin stages, 
either in North America or Europe. 

7. Wakren Stage. — Maximum extent of the gla- 
cial Lake Warren, held on its northeast side by the re- 
treating ice border; one expanse of water, as mapped 
by Spencer, Lawson, Taylor, Gilbert, and others, from 
Lake Superior over Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Erie 
to the southwestern part of Lake Ontario ; its latest 
southern beach traced east by Gilbert to Crittenden, 
New York, correlated by Leverett with the Lockport 
moraine.* 

This and later American stages, all of minor impor- 



* American Journal of Science, HI, vol. 1, pp. 1-20, with map, 
July, 1895. 



358 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

tance and duration in comparison with the preceding, 
can not probably be shown to be equivalent with 
Geikie's European divisions belonging in the same time. 
Successive boundaries of the receding American ice 
sheet are noted, as in Figure 57, in accordance with 
studies of the Laurentian series of glacial lakes. 

8. Toronto Stage. — Slight glacial oscillations, with 
temperate climate nearly as now, at Toronto and Scar- 
borough, Ontario, indicated by interbedded deposits of 
glacial drift and fossiliferous stratified gravel, sand, and 
clay.* Although the waning ice sheet still occupied a 
vast area on the northeast, and twice readvanced, with 
deposition of much boulder clay or till, during the for- 
mation of this fossiliferous drift series, the climate then, 
determined by the Champlain low altitude of the land, 
by the proximity of the large glacial Lake Algonquin, 
succeeding the larger Lake Warren, and by the east- 
ward and northeastward surface atmospheric currents 
and courses of all storms, was not less mild than now. 
The trees whose wood is found in the interglacial 
Toronto beds now have their most northern limits in 
the same region. 

9. Iroquois Stage. — Full expansion of the glacial 
Lake Iroquois in the basin of the present Lake Ontario 
and northward, then outflowing at Rome, New York, to 
the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers. Gradual re-elevation 
of the Rome outlet from the Champlain subsidence had 
lifted the surface of Lake Iroquois in its western part 
from near the present lake level at Toronto to a height 
there of about 200 feet, finally holding this height dur- 
ing many years, with the formation of the well-devel- 
oped Iroquois beach. 

* American Geologist, vol. xv, pp. 285-291, May, 1895. 



STAGES OF THE ICE AGE. 359 

Between the times of Lakes Warren and Iroquois, 
the glacial Lake Lundy, named by Spencer from its 
beach ridge of Lundy's Lane,* probably had an outlet 
east to the Hudson by overflow across the slope of the 
highlands south of the Mohawk ; but its relationship to 
the glacial Lake Newberry, named by Fairchild as out- 
flowing to the Susquehanna by the pass south of Seneca 
Lake,f needs to be more definitely ascertained. 

10. St. Lawrence Stage. — The final stage in the 
departure of the ice sheet, which we are able to deter- 
mine from the history of the Laurentian lakes and St. 
Lawrence Valley, is approximately delineated in Figure 
57, when the glacial Lake St. Lawrence, outflowing 
through the Champlain basin to the Hudson, stretched 
from a strait originally 150 feet deep over the Thousand 
Islands, at the mouth of Lake Ontario, and from the 
vicinity of Pembroke, on the Ottawa River, easterly to 
Quebec or beyond. As soon as the ice barrier which 
had held these glacial lakes was melted through, the 
sea entered the depressed St. Lawrence, Champlain, and 
Ottawa valleys ; and subsequent epeirogenic uplifting 
has raised them to their present slight altitude above the 
sea level. 

Later stages of the glacial recession are doubtless 
recognisable by moraines and other evidences, the 
North American ice sheet becoming at last, as it proba- 
bly also had been in its beginnings, divided into three 
parts, one upon Labrador, another northwest of Hudson 
Bay, as shown by Tyrrell's observations, and a third 
upon the northern part of British Columbia. From com- 

* American Journal of Science, III, vol. xlvii. pp. 207-211. 
with map, March, 1894. 

f Bulletin, Geological Society of America, vol. vi, pp. 353-374, 
with map and plates, April, 1895. 



360 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

parison with the glacial Lake Agassiz in the basin of the 
Red River of the North and of Lake Winnipeg, whose 
duration was probably only about a thousand years, the 
whole Champlain epoch of land depression, the depar- 
ture of the ice sheet because of the warm climate so re- 
stored, and most of the re-elevation of the unburdened 
lands, appear to have required only a few (perhaps four 
or five) thousand years, ending about five thousand years 
ago. These late divisions of the Glacial period were far 
shorter than its Kansan, Aftonian, and Iowan stages; 
and the ratio of the Glacial and Champlain epochs may 
have been approximately as ten to one. The term 
Champlain conveniently designates the short closing 
part of the Ice Age when the land depression caused 
rapid though wavering retreat of the ice border, with 
more vigorous glacial currents on account of the mar- 
ginal melting and increased steepness of the ice front, 
favouring the accumulation of many retreatal moraines 
of very knolly and bouldery drift. 

The Glacial period or Ice Age is thus found divisible 
into two parts or epochs, the first or Glacial epoch being 
marked by high elevation of the drift-bearing areas and 
their envelopment by vast ice sheets, and the second or 
Champlain epoch being distinguished by the subsidence 
of these areas and the departure of the ice, with abun- 
dant deposition of both glacial and modified drift. 
Epeirogenic movements, first of great uplift and later 
of depression, are thus regarded as the basis of the two 
chief time divisions of this period. Each of these epochs 
is further divided in stages, marked in the Glacial epoch 
by fluctuations of the predominant ice accumulation, 
and in the Champlain epoch by successively diminishing 
limits of the waning ice sheet, which, however, some- 
times temporarily reaclvaticed, inclosing stratified and 



STAGES OF THE ICE AGE. 361 

fossiliferous beds between the unstratified glacial de- 
posits. The Ice Age still lingers in Greenland and in 
the Alaskan region of Mount St. Elias, from which, and 
from the Alps, our interpretations of the meaning of 
the North American and European drift formations are 
derived. 



CHAPTER XV. 

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 

The ju'eceding survey of facts impressively shows 
that Greenland is not only an important object lesson 
in glacial geology, but an intricate puzzle as well. Con- 
trary to all ordinary expectations, Greenland is main- 
taining for itself an independent glacial period long 
after glacial conditions have ceased to exist in the cor- 
responding latitudes of other portions of the northern 
hemisphere. Cape Farewell is on the sixtieth parallel 
of north latitude, and from that point northward, for a 
distance of fifteen hundred miles, the conditions of the 
Glacial period continue without cessation. But with the 
exception of the glaciers coming down from the lofty 
heights of the St. Elias Alps, and of a limited number 
on the west side of Baffin Bay north of Hudson Strait, 
there are no glaciers north of this latitude in British 
America and Alaska, while in Europe the capitals of 
Norway and Russia lie almost exactly upon the sixtieth 
parallel, and only a limited number of glaciers is found 
to the northward in the Scandinavian Peninsula, they 
being absent largely even from Lapland, which stretches 
beyond the seventieth parallel. The extensive areas of 
Finland and of Russia, in Europe, north of the latitude 
of Cape Farewell, which were once deeply enveloped in 
glacial ice, are now fruitful fields supporting a large and 
enterprising population. To understand the reason of 

362 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 3^3 

these present diverse conditions is probably to unravel 
the main cause of the Glacial period. 

It is interesting to note that the recent inventions 
for distributing heat throughout our houses by a skill- 
fully adjusted system of warm-water pipes are but imi- 
tations of a plan followed by Nature from time imme- 




Fig. 59.— Iceberg off the coast of Labrador. 

morial. A study of the present climatic conditions of 
the globe shows that the agencies for the distribution of 
the sun's heat are as important in the production of re- 
sults as is the direct action of the sun itself.* The Gulf 
Stream in the Atlantic Ocean trends eastward, by reason 

*For references and a fuller statement of facts, see Wright's 
Ice Age in North America, pp. 419-432. 



364 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

of the diurnal motion of the earth from west to east, 
and, finding free access to the seas stretching northward 
from Europe, transfers hither the heat of the tropics to 
modify the present climate of that once-frozen region. 
But if warm water from the south is permitted to enter 
the Arctic Ocean, cold water from the north must move 
southward from that area to take its place. By the 
same diurnal motion of the earth which throws north- 
erly flowing oceanic currents eastward, the southerly 
flowing arctic currents are thrown westward, thus sur- 
rounding Greenland with their chilling influences. 

It is significant also that the present narrowness and 
shallowness of Behring Strait prevent the warm currents 
of the Pacific from entering the Arctic Ocean from the 
west, so that they can not now assist in ameliorating the 
climate of the lands about the pole. Under these con- 
ditions it is easy to see that a moderate depression of 
Behring Strait might admit sufficient heat from the 
Pacific Ocean to change the whole aspect of the cli- 
mates within the arctic circle, while a somewhat greater 
elevation of the sea bottom along the line oi Iceland 
and the Faroe Islands between Greenland and Scotland 
might shut off so much warmth from the arctic area as 
greatly to extend the conditions favourable to the pro- 
duction of glaciers. 

Theoretical considerations of this sort combine with 
much positive evidence to give great cogency to the 
theory that the Glacial period was caused mainly by 
changes of the relative sea level in the northern part of the 
northern hemisphere, since these changes of level would, 
so to speak, turn the currents of warm water on and off 
from the different areas, thus controlling their local tem- 
perature, as the householder does that of the different por- 
tions of the building which is warmed by modern methods, 



3(56 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

The comparative shallowness of all these northern seas 
favours this theory, since only moderate changes of level 
would be required to produce the results. The positive 
evidences of such changes of level have already been de- 
tailed with sufficient fullness, but may here profitably be 
summarized and somewhat enlarged. 

Previous to the Glacial period warm climates did 
actually exist everywhere north of the arctic circle. At 
that time the vegetation of central Europe and of the 
Middle Atlantic States of America flourished in northern 
Greenland and in Spitzbergen, while there are abundant 
independent evidences that this was at a period when 
the arctic lands were greatly depressed. At the same 
time it is equally clear, from the fiords and other sub- 
merged channels, that just preceding the Glacial period 
there was an extensive elevation of all northern land. 
This coincidence of late Tertiary land elevation and the 
great increase of glaciers is too extensive to have been 
accidental, and, both in its effect upon the distribution 
of oceanic currents and upon temperature by virtue of 
elevation, it is just the combination which should be 
expected to produce a Glacial period. 

There is considerable difference of opinion as to 
what would be the character of Greenland if the ice 
were melted from it. Some maintain that the moun- 
tains upon the east and west coasts border a continent 
of little or moderate elevation in the interior, being in 
this respect analogous to most other large areas of land. 
Indeed, some suggest that much of the interior may be 
below the sea level, and that the real Greenland is but 
an archipelago. In this case the great height of the in- 
terior is produced by the accumulation of snow, such as 
we suppose at one time obliterated the North Sea, and 
joined the mountains of Scandinavia with those of the 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 367 

British Isles in one continuous glacial sheet. The 
great size of the icebergs floating off from the Greenland 
coast gives much countenance to this view. 

The persistence of the ice sheet over Greenland is 
also, perhaps, an effect of such a condition of things, 
since the great mass of ice implied in this theory would 
act as a powerful conservative agency to resist moderate 
changes in climate, while the great thickness of the 
accumulation would add to the arctic character of the 
climate. The small precipitation in Greenland — com- 
monly stated to be only about ten inches annually on 
and near the coast — renders it quite probable that if the 
ice were once melted away, it would not, under present 
conditions, accumulate again. On the high surface of 
the ice sheet, however, according to the experience of 
Nansen and Peary, the snowfall is doubtless far more 
than along the coast. 

On the other hand, it is maintained that there is 
not sufficient positive evidence of so thick an accumula- 
tion of ice as this theory implies. The great size of 
icebergs proves only a corresponding thickness of ice in 
the few depressions along the seashore through which 
the great glaciers discharge their contents. It is main- 
tained that this may not be inconsistent with a much 
thinner accumulation over the most of the interior. 
Upon this theory Greenland may differ from the Scan- 
dinavian peninsula chiefly in the large extent of its 
neve fields and in their slightly higher altitude ; so that 
the elevation of the land itself, surrounded as it is by 
water, may contribute largely to the production of 
glacial conditions. 

The distribution and preservation of plants and ani- 
mals in Greenland also strongly confirms the theory of a 
former extensive elevation of these northern regions, 
25 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 369 

Asa Gray and others have shown that the affinity of the 
plants of southern Greenland with those of Europe is 
such as to make it probable that they emigrated directly 
from Europe, rather than by the longer route across 
Asia and North America.* Davis Strait seems to have 
been a more effectual barrier to the emigration of plants 
than was the North Atlantic on the east of Greenland. 
This would imply that the elevation of the bed of the 
North Atlantic is more certainly proved, or that it was 
longer continued than that of Davis Strait or Baffin 
Bay ; or possibly it may prove simply that, from being 
freer of ice, it was more available for the passage of 
plants and animals. 

But the question arises, How could the plants and 
animals which had arrived on the coast of Greenland 
survive the rigours of the Glacial period on the borders 
of a region which is covered with glacial ice at the 
present day? The answer is found partly in the con- 
clusions to which recent investigations have led, that, 
much as the regions of the North Atlantic were ele- 
vated, the glaciers of Greenland did not extend so as to 
cover all the border which was raised above sea level. 
Indeed, while it seems evident that nearly all of the 
present border of Greenland was covered by glacial ice, 
the mountain peaks were never wholly enveloped, but 
projected as nunatahs above the icy wastes. On these, 
as Mr. Upham surmises, many plants may successfully 
have maintained their struggle for existence. 

But more probably we may picture Greenland of the 
Glacial period to ourselves as surrounded by wide, outly- 
ing, unglaciated areas of lowland but little above sea level, 
extending around the border, especially to the eastward. 

* See above, pp. 201, 202, 



370 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

Here the reindeer and musk ox, and some other animals, 
with all the existing plants of Greenland, may easily 
have maintained their existence until the ameliorating 
conditions of the climate caused the ice to withdraw 
toward its present limits, at the same time that the 
subsidence of the land curtailed their extension out- 
ward. In no other way does it seem possible to imag- 
ine how the reindeer and musk-ox (even if they could 
cross Smith Sound from America) could pass the icy 
barriers of Melville Bay and of the Humboldt glacier 
to reach the pasturing grounds of northern, eastern, 
and southern Greenland. 

The evidence that the mountains on the border of 
Greenland were never wholly enveloped by ice consists 
largely in the contrast between their appearance and 
that of the mountains on the coast of Labrador. As al- 
ready remarked,* there are in Labrador no sharp peaks, 
but everywhere the mountains present a smooth and 
flowing outline against the sky ; while on the Greenland 
coast the prevailing feature of the landscape is that of 
sharp, needlelike peaks, such as would do credit to the 
high Alps, or to the central portion of the Rocky Moun- 
tain range. 

The reason for this contrast can not be found in any 
dissimilarity between the character of the rocks in the 
two regions ; for, as already noted, they are of the same 
age and essentially alike, being chiefly granitic and gneis- 
soid in character, belonging to the Archaean period. 
The most satisfactory explanation, therefore, seems to be 
that the Labrador coast has been more completely en- 
veloped in glacial ice than the Greenland coast has ever 
been, resulting in its being planed down to a more uni- 

* See page 29, 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 371 

form level ; for it is evident that the erosive action of 
an ice sheet is prevailingly horizontal, while that of water 
is, in its earlier stages at least, when the land is much 
elevated, largely vertical, concentrating its force along 
the lowest lines, producing gorges and canons, which 
are gradually enlarged into valleys separated by moun- 
tain peaks. 

Mr. Walcott, however, the present director of the 
United States Geological Survey, believes * that the 
shaping of present land surfaces, even in these northern 
regions, is largely due to the action of ordinary erosive 
agencies in pre-Cambrian times, when the entire Ar- 
chaean area was brought down approximately to a base- 
level. This is inferred in part from the situation of the 
Cambrian strata which appear in various places in the 
valley of the St. Lawrence and in Newfoundland, and, 
we may add, in Labrador as well.f According to Mr. 
Walcott's observations, whenever the Cambrian or Silu- 
rian rocks in the regions mentioned rest on the older 
crystallines, the surface beneath them is essentially of 
the same type as the general surface of the areas of crys- 
talline rocks beyond them. 

But the evidence of a long-continued elevation and 
subsequent glaciation of the area west of Davis Strait is 
beyond question. This has already been largely pre- 
sented in our chapter upon Pleistocene Changes of 
Level, but the full strength of the case calls for some 
additional facts and discussion. Besides the great depths 
of the Saguenay canon and of the submerged channel 
extending from it through the Gulf of St. Lawrence to 

* See Twelfth Annual Report of the United States Geological 
Survey, pp. 546 et seq. 
f See Chapter II. 



372 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

the edge of the deep depression of the Atlantic basin, 
which have already been adduced, we should add the 
facts elsewhere noted concerning the depth of Hamilton 
Inlet in Labrador, and of the lakes in the upper part of 
Hamilton River below the Great Falls. Analogous facts 
occur also along the eastern margin of Newfoundland, 
which properly belongs to the same area. Grand Pond, 
on this island, whose surface is 116 feet above tide, has a 
depth of more than 1,000 feet, making its bottom 988 
feet below sea-level. In Conception Bay, also, which is 
almost like a fiord, the depth of the water is 840 feet. 

To the evidence already adduced concerning the gen- 
eral glaciation of Labrador, we may add the similar 
facts concerning Newfoundland, where glacial striae are 
found all along the eastern coast upon the highest of 
the headlands. In the vicinity of St. John's the striae 
are very clearly marked in an east-and-west direction 
upon the highest summits, 600 feet above the sea. 
There seems, therefore, little reason to doubt the con- 
clusion of Mr. Murray,* that the glacial phenomena of 
Newfoundland belong to a general movement which filled 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence and extended some distance out 
upon the Atlantic plateau to the east of that island. In- 
deed, there is much reason to believe that the banks of 
Newfoundland, so celebrated for their fisheries, are mo- 
rainic deposits made during the maximum extension of 
the ice which flowed off from the Labrador peninsula, f at a 
time when the elevation was such as to raise this por- 
tion of the plateau above the water level. 



* Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society of Can- 
ada for 1882, sect, iv, pp. 55-76. 

f See an article of Gr. F. Wright, in American Journal of Sci- 
ence. February, 1895, pp. 86-94. 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 373 

Upon turning our attention to the Greenland coast, 
we have, as already shown, even more striking evidences 
of extensive elevations of the land in preglacial times, 
while it is equally clear that the accumulation of ice did 
not proceed far enough to envelop completely the high- 
est mountain peaks which border the western coast. 
But that the ice sheet formerly extended much farther 
than it does at present, is evident from even a cursory 
examination. Referring only to my own observations, 
which, so far as I know, are in accordance with all 
others in southern Greenland, I noted at Ikamiut glacial 
striae on the sides of the fiord several hundred feet above 
the water level pointing toward the open sea. Upon the 
margin of Isortok Fiord, also, glacial grooving and stri- 
ation appeared on a magnificent scale near its mouth, 
which is now fifty miles from the head of the fiord. 
The grooves here were passing diagonally upward and 
across a projection of land separating the narrow por- 
tions of the fiord from the open sea and rising to a 
height of several hundred feet, Accumulations more 
nearly approaching a moraine than anything else I saw 
in Greenland occurred at this point. At Sukkertoppen, 
while there was no glacial till, but the rocks were per- 
fectly bare and free from soil, there were at the same 
time, scattered over the low elevations, many boulders of 
a light colored granite, which were not local, but must 
have been brought from the interior. Beyond question, 
therefore, all the so-called " outskirts " of Greenland 
were formerly enveloped in ice, with the exception, pos- 
sibly, of the higher mountain peaks which projected 
above it, as the nunataks of Dalager and Jensen do at 
the present time.* 

* See above, pp. 264-267. 



374 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

The complication of the phenomena, however, and 
their difficulty of interpretation, strikingly appear in 
the facts already noted by Prof. Chamberlin, that, in the 
far north, near the seventy-sixth parallel of latitude, 
there are in close proximity the same contrasts between 
glaciated and unglaciated areas which we have noted 
respecting Labrador and the general coast of Greenland. 
Dalrymple Island, in latitude 76° 30', and near the 
Greenland coast, presents the needlelike contour of its 
mountain peaks characteristic of an unglaciated region ; 
while fifty miles northwestward, the Carey Islands, con- 
sisting of almost the same identical rock (hornblendic 
gneiss), present the familiar graceful outlines character- 
istic of glaciated regions. The ice movement over the 
Carey Islands, however, was evidently from the north — 
that is, down Smith Sound — and not from the west 
coast of northern Greenland. This is shown both by 
the fact that the stoss sides are on the north, and that 
the erratics upon the islands, consisting of limestone, 
sandstone, shale, and quartzite, must have come from 
that direction. 

At the same time, it is a suggestive commentary upon 
the local variations which may take place in connection 
with extensive ice movements, that within fifty miles 
north of the Carey Islands the sea is now more than 
thirteen hundred feet deep, and a small portion of the 
coast east of Dalrymple Island is believed by Prof. Cham- 
berlin never to have been covered with ice, though its 
altitude is now less than that of its neighbouring glaciers. 
In short, there is a driftless area on the northern border 
of Baffin Bay presenting, though on a smaller scale, the 
same characteristic contrasts to the region around it 
which appear in the driftless area of southwestern Wis- 
consin. From this Prof. Chamberlin infers " that the 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 375 

former elevation of Greenland was not coincident with 
conditions favouring glaciation." * 

Several considerations, however, would seem to di- 
minish confidence in this conclusion. In the first place, 
the glaciation of the Carey Islands shows that there was 
an immense actual enlargement of neighbouring glaciers 
without corresponding effects being produced upon 
Dalrymple Island and the neighbouring coast. This in 
itself calls for some local explanation, whether we sup- 
pose the glaciation to have occurred during a period of 
elevation or while the land was at its present compara- 
tive level. In the second place, the effect of deep de- 
pressions, such as occur in Baffin Bay and in the gulfs 
and fiords leading into it, upon the direction of the ice 
streams and upon their consequent erosive power, is not 
easy to estimate. There can be little doubt that, during 
the maximum extent of the ice in the Glacial period in 
the United States, the icefields surrounding the driftless 
area of Wisconsin were far higher than was the enclosed 
unglaciated region. As in the progress of great cur- 
rents of water there are eddies and lines of slack mo- 
tion, so there seem to have been corresponding areas of 
stagnant ice in the midst of continental glaciers, where 
the supply of foreign ice is so diminished that the melt- 
ing power of the sun is adequate to the maintenance of 
perpetual " glacial gardens." 

At the same time it must be confessed that elevation 
alone is not sufficient to account for extensive glaciation. 
The supply of moisture to the currents of air is equal- 
ly necessary, for the clouds can only precipitate what 
they have elsewhere absorbed. It is therefore necessary 
to keep constantly in mind the possible influence of 



* Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, vol. vi, p. 220. 



376 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

changes of level in places distant from the region upon 
which the precipitation is taking place. The effect of 
an elevation in Greenland might be neutralized by an 
elevation in the vicinity of Behring Strait, limiting the 
flow of warm water into the Arctic Sea. 

But the general coincidence of elevation just preced- 
ing the Glacial period is so extensive as to connect this 
irresistibly with the causes of the period. This evidence 
appears not only in the fiords and deep submerged river 
channels on the borders of the continent, but is equally 
impressive in the interior, where my own investigations 
have been mainly prosecuted. The inner gorges of the 
Ohio River and its tributaries, for example, are from 
three to six hundred feet in depth, and still retain their 
nearly precipitous sides, showing that they have been 
worn with great comparative rapidity during a recent 
geological period of continental elevation. 

In the vicinity of Warren, Pa., indubitable evidence 
was adduced by the joint observations of Mr. Frank 
Leverett and myself that this erosion of the Allegheny 
Valley had reached certainly to a close approximation 
of its present extent before the first maximum period 
of glaciation, for we found buried channels of south- 
ern tributaries to the Allegheny filled with the very 
oldest glacial debris to a depth which carried them 
down very closely to the level of the present Allegheny 
River.* 

Prof. E. H. Williams has likewise adduced a large 
amount of indubitable evidence that the Lehigh River 
in eastern Pennsylvania, and by consequence the Dela- 
ware River, into which it empties, had worn channels 
down nearly to the level of their present rock bottom 

* See American Journal of Science, March, 1894, pp. 166-168. 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 377 

before the maximum extension of ice during the first 
stage of the Glacial period. * 

Such extensive coincidences of elevation immediately 
preceding the earlier stages of the Glacial period, and 
of the subsequent enlargement of glacial phenomena, 
can not easily be set aside either by a priori theories 
concerning the improbability of such extensive coinci- 
dent epeirogenic changes of level as the theory supposes, 
or by laying stress upon numerous local phenomena of 
obscure import. 

These oscillations of level, connected with the alter- 
nate expansion and recession of the Greenland ice, go 
further than some are willing to admit to sustain the 
theory that the Glacial period in its vicissitudes was 
caused by them. Indeed, the elements of the Green- 
land problem are essentially the same as those of the 
whole Northern hemisphere during the Glacial age. 
Prof. Shaler has warned us that New England at the 
present time barely escapes glacial conditions. The 
rudiments of a glacier still remain in Tuckermann's 
Ravine upon Mount Washington. A slight lowering of 
temperature or a slight increase of snowfall would again 
start the glaciers of the White Mountains out upon 
their career, and, when once started, it is difficult to tell 
where they would stop ; for glaciers intensify the con- 
ditions to which they owe their origin, and would seem 
to have almost unlimited power when once the forces 
producing them have come fully into play. Equally 
close is the approach to glacial conditions in Norway 
and Alaska. Indeed, as has been shown, the oscillations 
of the Alaskan glaciers have been very extensive during 
the past century, while the delicacy of balance of cli- 

* See American Journal of Science, January, 1894, p. 35. 



378 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

matic conditions in the Alpine region is such that much 
alarm was felt in Switzerland over the supposed pros- 
pect (which, however, was without foundation) that 
considerable areas of the Desert of Sahara were to be 
inundated by an artificial canal. Even a slight ad- 
dition, through the enlargement of the evaporating 
area over which they come, to the moisture borne by 
the winds which bathe the heights of the Alpine 
peaks, would so increase the size of the Swiss glaciers 
as to make them desolating and destructive in the 
extreme. 

That there have been extensive oscillations in the 
relative elevation of the lands of the northern hemi- 
sphere in recent geological times is clearly proved by 
the abundant facts already narrated. But so intimately 
connected are the geologic forces of the earth, that we 
have to look far for the deeper causes producing the 
definite results which we are called upon to study. It 
seems probable, as shown in the preceding chapters, 
that the period of land elevation which preceded the 
Glacial epoch was the culmination of long-continued 
and slowly accumulating geologic forces. The slow 
contraction of the earth through its loss of heat, the 
extensive transfers of sediment which had been going on 
for ages from the elevated land areas to the sea margins, 
all conspired to produce that marvellous readjustment 
of the earth's surface which took place in connection 
with the mountain-building era of Late Tertiary times. 
It is at present impossible for us to say why the Sierra 
Nevada, the Rocky Mountains, the Pyrenees, the Alps, and 
the Himalayas, should have marked the lines of exces- 
sive crumpling and elevation of the earth's crust during 
this period, or why the northern part of North America 
and of Europe and of the intervening Atlantic basin 




: 



I 





380 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

should have risen so much higher than the southern 
portions did. 

But when once these areas had arisen sufficiently 
high to retain throughout the season and from year to 
year a portion of the winter's snow, it is easy to see that 
a force of tremendous significance was set in operation. 
In due time several million cubic miles of water had been 
abstracted from the ocean (lowering its level fully a 
hundred and fifty feet) and locked up in the glacial 
mantle enveloping the northern part of Europe and 
America, a portion of which still remains in the interior 
of Greenland. If there is any plasticity in the earth's 
crust (and the geological record proves beyond question 
that there is), the transfer of so much weight from the 
oceanic beds to a limited portion of the continental area 
would seem sufficient to produce marked results in de- 
pressing the regions over which the ice had accumulated. 
After the depression connected with this cause had pro- 
ceeded beyond a certain point, the lowering of the alti- 
tude would seem naturally to be an important contribut- 
ing cause to bring about the change of climatic conditions 
which removed the ice sheet ; while at the same time 
the removal of the burden of ice from the glaciated area 
and the return of the water to the oceans would partially 
restore the original preglacial conditions, and set in mo- 
tion again the forces tending to produce a glacial period. 

Thus it would seem that, in the disturbances which 
brought on the Glacial period, there is revealed a set of 
forces calculated to produce such a series of oscillations 
as would acoount partially for the complicated character 
of the glacial deposits, with the frequent temporary re- 
treats and advances of the ice over extensive territories. 
This is the more plausible, since Greenland, too, is not 
without evidence of strange vicissitudes in glacial his- 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 381 

tory. But, while the evidence is clear that in southern 
Greenland the ice formerly extended everywhere down 
to the ocean, it seems likely that within historical times 
a considerably larger area was free from ice than at the 
present time. For, as already remarked, it scarcely seems 




Fig. 63.— Near view of the Devil's Dining Table, Labrador. (See page 36.) 

possible that Norse colonies should flourish in southern 
Greenland under present conditions as they did nearly 
a thousand years ago ; but at the same time, with this 
apparent advance of ice in southern Greenland, there 
is an apparent retreat in some of the northern por- 



382 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

tions. The glaciers about Inglefield Gulf, in the vicinity 
of Peary's headquarters, seem to be stationary, if not 
actually retreating. 

But if we advance further, and permit ourselves to 
speculate upon the causes which have produced the 
change of level, of which there is evidence in the gla- 
ciated region, we are compelled to be satisfied with very 
imperfect and partial solutions of the problem. Great 
as is the absolute force brought to light in the alternate 
transfer of water from the ocean to the continental gla- 
ciers, and from the glaciers back to the ocean, its effects 
are disguised and modified by other forces with which 
they combine to such an extent that we are soon lost in 
endless complications. We know so little about the vis- 
cosity of the interior of the earth and about the rigidity 
of its crust, and about the contending forces of eleva- 
tion and depression connected with the readjustments 
of late Tertiary times, that we must leave the subject to 
entice and baffle physicists and mathematicians for a 
long time to come. The wonders of Nature are not 
likely soon to be exhausted. Its secrets are not to be 
taken by sudden assault. 

Even a slight contact with aboriginal life in Green- 
land makes it easy to believe in the evidence of glacial 
man in Europe and America. Indeed, here we have 
him still in Greenland, though probably of a very dis- 
tinct race from the tribes which at one time hunted the 
walrus and the reindeer along the front of the ice sheet 
in the Delaware Valley, or associated with the musk ox, 
the cave bear, and the woolly rhinoceros on the plains 
of northern France. If man can maintain a subsistence 
along the border of the existing ice sheet of Greenland, 
where he is dependent for wood upon the scanty supply 
brought by ocean currents from Siberia, and where 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 



383 



there is absolutely no vegetable food except a few berries 
and stalks of angelica, and where there are no caves 
and rock shelters in which he can protect himself from 
the inclemency of the season, it is easy to believe that 
he lived in comparative comfort in the well-wooded re- 
gion which bordered the ice sheet on the plains of Ger- 
many and in the valley of the Mississippi, and which 
opened out toward more congenial climes to the south. 




Fig. 64.— Contented Eskimos. 



The question, however, arises, Why do men cling to 
such conditions of life when more attractive ones are 
opened to them ? In Greenland, indeed, the natives are 
shut up to these conditions, but it would seem that the 
Eskimos in British America and Alaska would be at- 
tracted southward. The answer probably is, that the 
regions to the south are already occupied by other and 
26 



384: GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

hostile tribes, for it is a significant fact that everywhere 
the Eskimo and the red Indian are inimical to each 
other. A distinguished botanist has said, in illustration 
of the truth of the doctrine of natural selection, that 
plants do not live where they like best, but where other 
plants will let them. So it seems to be, or to have been, 
with the Eskimos — they have evidently adjusted them- 
selves from necessity to these northern conditions ; but, 
once adjusted, they are now really in love with them, 
and Greenland life is so attractive that the race would 
not be at home anywhere else. 

To a considerable extent the adjustment is physical. 
The stomachs of the Eskimos have become fitted for the 
digestion and assimilation of the food which the region 
provides, and their systems inured to the kind of labour 
necessary to provide the requisite food and raiment. 
The missionaries and Danish officials have found it un- 
desirable, and indeed impossible, greatly to change the 
habits of native life in Greenland and Labrador ; for, 
as already said, the value of native products is greater in 
use than it can be in exchange. The blubber and skin 
of the seal meet a more important want to the Green- 
lander himself than they possibly can to civilized na- 
tions ; while the food and clothing of temperate climates 
are of little service in the rigours of a Greenland winter 
or amid the exposures of the hunting season in Green- 
land waters ; and a European house, fitted to protect 
against the cold and storms of an arctic region, would 
be so much more expensive than the house of the na- 
tives as to be entirely beyond their means. 

Life in Greenland, however, is by no means so dreary 
as it would seem to an outsider, and one can well under- 
stand how people physically adjusted to the conditions 
maintain such cheerfulness and gaiety in their life. 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 



385 



Indeed, it is not possible for the natives of southern 
climes to be more light-hearted than are the Greenland 
Eskimos. As we have seen, they are given to singing 
and dancing, to story-telling and joking, and their 
merry laughter rings out everywhere to enliven all 




Fig. 65.— Eskimos sporting iu their kayaks. One is jumping over the 
other. 



ordinary intercourse. A little closer examination of 
the conditions, likewise, shows that there is a secure 
basis for this cheerfulness and hope. Up to certain 
limits the supply of food and raiment for the Eskimos 
is abundant and readily attainable. Their low houses, 
built of stone and sod, and covered with a slightly 



386 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

arching roof, are further protected during the winter 
by the great fall of snow beneath which they are deeply 
buried. In these houses so protected the flame of the 
oil lamp furnishes all the heat desirable; so that for 
comfort the inhabitants are compelled to divest them- 
selves of most of their clothing when they enter the 
room, and thus are the better protected by it when they 
return again to their duties out of doors. Even the 
venerable Dr. Kink testifies that the welcome shelter of 
such a house is not without its attractions when the 
storm is raging outside. 

The supply of food and raiment is brought to the 
very door of the Eskimos in Greenland, or perhaps it is 
more proper to say that they have settled at those places 
where these natural supplies are most constant and 
abundant ; thus illustrating the same principle which 
has led to the common observation that usually Nature 
has so ordered it that there should be a bountiful run 
of salmon in the vicinity of a monastery, and that a 
large river should flow by a great city. So the supply 
of natural advantages in Greenland, though limited, is 
remarkably uniform and reliable. Indeed, it is so con- 
stant as to interfere with the development of fore- 
thought, prudence, and thrift among the people, and 
to stand in the way of their progress and advancement, 
and to favour the continuance of that communistic life 
which characterizes their state of society. 

Instead of having to go out to distant seas, as the 
hardy fishermen of Newfoundland and Norway do, for 
their fish and seal, the fish and seal come to the Green- 
landers. And, indeed, in a country where there is no 
ship timber, it is impossible to think of venturing far 
from the coast. The Greenland er, therefore, must abide 
his time and wait till the seasons for the schools of fish 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 387 

arrive, and for the annual migration of the various spe- 
cies of seal, and of the immense flocks of birds, whose 
eggs and flesh give pleasing variety of food and whose 
feathers afford unrivalled protection against the cold. 
The very regularity of this supply removes, as we have 
said, the motives which in a state of civilization lead to 
provision for the future, and which stimulate and diver- 
sify the activities of men. 

But, at the same time, it is clear that the population 
of Greenland is narrowly limited in growth by the aver- 
age amount of these annual supplies. It is not possible 
for the population of Greenland largely to increase. 
Much increase in the destruction of the animal life 
upon which the people depend for their existence would 
" kill the goose that lays the golden egg,^ and lead to 
a speedy diminution of resources. Indeed, as we have 
already remarked, owing to the facilities furnished by 
firearms for killing reindeer a generation ago, and the 
inducement held out by even the low exchangeable 
value of the horns and hides and tongues of those ani- 
mals, and a failure upon the part of the Government to 
enforce proper restrictions, the whole species of reindeer 
has been brought to the verge of extinction in Green- 
land; so that not only great hardships are inflicted 
upon the present generation, but total destruction of 
the Greenland Eskimo is threatened. 

f ~ m V 

For, as remarked in the previous chapter,* while the 
Greenland igloo is not seriously objectionable from a 
sanitary point of view during the winter months, when 
everything is frozen so as to prevent decay, nothing can 
exceed the filthiness of the surroundings when the snows 
melt off in the spring. The evils of this unsanitary con- 
dition were formerly avoided by the possibility of each 
family's possessing a reindeer-skin tent, in which they 



388 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

took up their abode for the summer, while they left the 
elements to purify their winter abodes. But, now that 
the supply of reindeer skins is so limited, the inhabit- 
ants are compelled to occupy their unsanitary abodes 
during the summer season, greatly to the detriment both | 
of their own health and of that of their posterity. | In this 
case certainly the possession of civilized instruments of 
destruction has proved a doubtful blessing to the natives 
of Greenland. How far the wise foresight of the esti- 
mable Danish officials and missionaries may correct the 
present evil tendencies is one of the most interesting 
questions of the future. Hajapily, the problem in 
Greenland is much simpler than that which is pre- 
sented in the preservation of the aborigines of our own 
country ; for in Greenland there is no inducement for 
civilized races to encroach upon their possessions and 
subject the natives to the irrepressible conflicts which 
are so continuously destroying the Indian tribes in the 
United States. It being impossible to transport Euro- 
pean civilization to the conditions of Greenland, it is 
not necessary to waste our sympathy upon the people 
who are already adjusted to these conditions and are 
happy in them. If any people live in Greenland, they 
must live substantially as the Eskimos do. We may be 
content if we successfully impart to them a share in 
that higher intellectual and spiritual life which en- 
nobles and sweetens all conditions alike. 

A similar line of remarks is suggested by the con- 
ditions of life throughout the entire North Atlantic 
region. Scanty as is the population of Labrador and 
Newfoundland, it has about reached its maximum 
limit, unless other than the present sources of subsist- 
ence are discovered and utilized. The seals which an- 
nually float past the coast of Labrador are not unlimited 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 



389 



in number, and are not wholly insensible to the succes- 
sive inroads made upon them by modern methods of de- 
struction. There is imminent danger that the numbers 















1 


r \ i 










L \ 
L- i 


^M;-^$r,:W '■■'■■■r^*&">V 












■ 



Fig. 6G.— Towing the Rigel out of the Punch Bowl during a calm. 

shall be so reduced by the present greed of hunters that 
there will be little reward awaiting the enterprising- 
crews who set out in the future from Newfoundland for 
their capture. Indeed, the recent stress of hard times 
in Newfoundland is in part a result of the failing sup- 
ply of seal to be found upon the ice of the Labrador 
current. 

The impressive regularity with which the schools of 
different kinds of fish visit stated places from year to 
year throughout the North Atlantic furnishes a solid 
basis for business calculation up to a certain point. 



390 GREENLAND ICEFIELDS. 

But evidently there is a limit to the supply of available 
fish, even in the ocean, and the increase in the catch is 
by no means proportionate to the increase in the num- 
bers and efforts of the fishermen. It would not by any 
means be so easy to double the quantity of fish caught 
as it is to double the means for their capture. 

One can not, however, but be deeply impressed with 
the success of the people of the North Atlantic in ad- 
justing themselves to the conditions surrounding them. 
The few thousand people who remain in Labrador seem 
to fill the space which Nature has provided, and are 
able to maintain an existence that is by no means with- 
out its attractions. The winters are indeed long, but 
not altogether dreary, since with their dog sledges the 
inhabitants can travel over the frozen bays more readily 
than they can cross them by boat in summer ; while the 
moderate supply of timber, which is protected by its 
poor quality from total destruction by lumbermen, sup- 
plies them with shelter and fuel and a limited amount 
of occupation. The difficulty of securing educational 
and religious facilities is partly overcome by gathering 
close together in winter time, and by the use of floating 
bethels in the summer ; while the great influx of foreign 
ships and outside fishermen during the summer effectu- 
ally enlarges the horizon of the native's mental vision. 

Contact both with the permanent European resi- 
dents of Labrador and with the captains and crews of 
the vessels which venture into these northern regions 
to supply the world's demand for fish, can but greatly 
increase one's appreciation of the marvellous capacity 
of human nature for adapting itself to seemingly ad- 
verse conditions, and for wresting from them by conflict 
the noblest qualities of character. The Gloucester fish- 
ermen whom one meets on the coasts of Iceland and 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 391 

Greenland, and the Newfoundlanders whom he encoun- 
ters upon the coast of Labrador, as well as those who 
are permanent residents there, are easily the peers of any 
class of people in the world. Perhaps, however, this is 
a result of that stern law of natural selection which here 
operates with remorseless certainty, permitting only the 
most healthy, the most enterprising, and the most in- 
telligent to survive. 



■■ 



- 



INDEX. 



Ablation, 267, 303, 306. 

Academy Glacier, 117. 

Adirondack Mountains, 304 ; plants 
as in Greenland, 193. 

Aftonian (Helvetian) interglacial 
stage. 350, 353, 354, 360. 

Agassiz, Alexander, 317. 

Agassiz, Louis, .245, 254, 297, 317, 
346. 

Agassiz, glacial lake, 306, 360. 

Alaska glaciers, 269, 298-305, 361, 
377. 

Albertan stage and formation of 
glacial drift, 352. 

Alders, 68, 191, 299. 

Alexander, Cape, 296. 

Alga?, 197, 200, 271. 

Algonquin, glacial lake, 358. 

Allegheny Mountains, plants as in 
Greenland, 194. 

Allegheny Eiver, 376. 

Allen, Dr. Dudley, 134. 

Allen, J. A., on pinnipeds, 226, 228, 
229. 

Alps, glaciers, 262, 297, 302, 361. 

Altitude of land, causing the Ice 
Age, 211, 344-347, 352, 364. 

Altitudes of the Greenland ice 
sheet, 19S, 272, 278, 282, 286, 
354 ; of mountains in Green- 
land, 206 ; of nunataks, 198, 266. 

Ameralik Fiord, 105, 251, 277. 



Andrews, Dr. E., 341. 

Andromeda, 194, 199. 

Angekoks, 130. 

Angelica, 120, 127, 192, 383. 

Angmagsalik, 119. 

Animals of Greenland, chapter on, 

214-244. 
Annelid worms, 244. 
Anniversary Lodge, 285, 293, 295. 
Antarctic continent, 246, 287, 298. 
Anticosti, 224. 
Archangelica, 192. 
Arctic Ocean, depth, 333. 
Arnica, 68, 191. 
Asasak Glacier, 113. 
Ascidians, 244. 
Astronomic theories of the causes 

of the Ice Age, 334-344, 355. 
Astrup, Eivind, 280. 
Atanekerdluk, 113, 208, 209, 213. 
Augpacllartok Glacier, 262. 
Auks, 89, 167, 238, 239. 
Aulatsivik Fiord, 108, 260, 261. 
Australian zoological region, 214. 
x\zalea, 194. 

Baal's Eiver, 104. 

Baffin Bay, 9, 51 ; depth, 313 : limit 

of migration of animals, 216; 

and of plants, 202, 205, 207, 320, 

331 ; tides, 312 ; driftless area, 

374. 



393 



394 



INDEX. 



Baikal, Lake, 227. 
Baked apple (or cloudberry), 80. 
Bald cypress, fossil, 210. 
Baldwin, S. Prentiss, 301. 
Ball, Sir Robert 8., 336, 343. 
Baltic Glacier, 350, 357. 
Baltic Sea, 330, 354. 
Banks, Labrador, 42; Newfound- 
land, 34, 372. 
Barrow Strait, depth, 313. 
Barrows, Dr. Nathan, on flora of the 

White Mountains, 204. 
Bartlett, Capt., 20. 
Basalt, 36, 112, 208, 296, 321. . 
Battle Harbour, 28. 
Bauman, Mr. and Mrs., 180. 
Beaches, raised, 31, 43, 44. 
Bear, white or polar, 13, 21, 218, 296. 
Bearded seal, 231. 
Becker, Dr. George F., 343. 
Beech, fossil, 210. 
Beetles, 243. 

Behring Sea, 215, 224, 227, 228, 333. 
Behring Strait, formerly aland area, 

202, 215, 329, 352; width and 

depth, 333, 364. 
Belcher, Sir E., 13. 
Bell, Dr. Eobert, 34, 44, 324, 338. 
Belle Isle, Strait of, 4, 6, 23, 33. 
Bellflower, 191, 198. 
Belt, Thomas, 329. 
Bergen Company, 249, 250. 
Berggren, collecting snow algae, 200, 

260, 
Berries of Greenland, 189, 192, 383. 
Bessels, Dr. Emil, 325. 
Bilberry, 192. 
Birches, 68, 98, 191, 196, 205 ; fossil, 

210. 
Bird cliffs, 238. 
Birds of Greenland, 75, 87, 89, 236- 

239, 275, 282, 296. 
Bistrup, Mr. and Mrs., 180. 
Bjorling and Kalstenius, 288. 



Black and White Island, 35. 

Black crakeberry, 119. 

Black death, 176. 

Bladder-nose seal, 231. 

Blaeberries, 86, 109. 

Blanc Sablon, 27. 

Blubber, 222, 230, 233, 241. 

Boats of the Eskimos. See Kayak 
Umiak. 

Bonneville, Lake, 339. 

Bonney, Prof. T. G, 345. 

Botanical provinces of Greenland, 
205. 

Boulders, 31, 36 ; inclosed in gla- 
ciers, 268, 289, 291 ; on borders 
of ice sheets, 251, 271, 279 ; trans- 
portation long distances, 304. 

Bowdoin Bay, 285, 289, 291, 295. 

Brainard, 117. 

Brewer, W. II., x. 

British Isles, preglacial elevation, 
328 ; subsidence in the Cham- 
plain epoch, 329. 

Brown, Dr. Eobert, cited, 185, 196, 
197, 219, 224, 233, 236, 258. 

Bryant, Henry G., 38, 287. 

Bryant Glacier, 290. 

Buddington, Capt., 14, 16. 

Buttercups, 68, 1-96, 199. 

Butterflies, 117, 243. 

California, epeirogenic movements, 

318. 
Cambrian rocks, 86, 37, 40, 371. 
Camping on* South Isortok Fiord, 

71 ; on Ikamiut Fiord, 80, 157. 
Canadian glacial drift and stages, 

352. 
Cape Cod, plants as in Greenland, 

194. 
Capelin fishery, 241. 
Carey Islands, 18, 288, 292, 293, 374, 

375. 
Caribou, 220. 



INDEX. 



395 



Carpenter, P. P., 317, 318. 

Cartensen, A. K., 96, 98. 

Causes of the Ice Age, 211, 215, 
305, 334-347. 

Cetaceans, 222, 233-236. 

Chamberlin, Prof. T. C, cited, 
200, 269, 306, 308, 336, 341 ; ob- 
servations of Greenland gla- 
ciers, 287-293, 374 ; on stages of 
the Ice Age, 349, 351. 

Champlain, Lake, 326, 327, 345, 351, 
359. 

Champlain epoch, 233, 235, 307, 
309, 325, 345, 351, 360 ; subsi- 
dence, 322-330, 345, 355, 358. 

Chandler, Dr. S. C, 343. 

Chapels in Labrador, 25, 27, 28, 32. 

Charles Harbour, Cape, vi, 13, 23, 
25, 27, 31. 

Chateau Bay, 35, 45. 

Chimo, Fort, 44. 

Chinese, 134 et seq. 

Chinook winds of the United States, 
123. 

Christianshaab, district of, 109. 

Cinquefoil, 191, 194, 197, 198. 

Circumpolar fauna, 215 ; liora. 201, 
203, 206. 

Claushavn, 109. . 

Climatic changes in Greenland, 
307, 311, 331. 

Cloudberry, 30, 192. 

Club moss, 197. 

Coal in Greenland, 111, 113, 207; 
Grinnell Land, 210. 

Codfish, 27, 31, 32, 87, 106, 109, 240, 
242. 

Composite, 196. 

Coni ferae in Greenland, 191 ; fossil, 
208, 210, 211. 

Coniferous driftwood, 323, 324. 

Cook, Dr. F. A., v, x, 50, 136, 150. 

Cotton grass, 193. 

Cowberry, 192. 



Cress family, 195, 196. 

Cretaceous strata in Greenland, 

207, 209, 213, 319. 
Crevasses, 92, 253, 260, 264, 266, 

271, 274, 278, 299. 
Crimson Cliffs, 200. 
Croll, Dr. James, 335-343. 
Crowberry, 109, 189, 199. 
Crowfoot, 191, 196. 
Cruciferse, 195, 196. 
Crustacea, 244. 

Cryolite mines, 15, 70, 101, 185. 
Cryptogamous plants, 194, 197, 200. 
Curlew berry, 36, 189 
Cushing, Prof. H. P., 301. 
Gycads, fossil, 209. 

Dalager, Lars, on inland ice, 103, 

252, 265. 
Dalager's nunataks, 252, 264, 373. 
Dale, Dr. William H., 138, 333. 
Dalrymple Island, 292, 374, 375. 
Dana, Prof. J. D., 264, 266, 304, 306, 

312, 315, 337, 344. 345, 351. 
Danes in Greenland, explorations, 

250, 251, 263, 266, 285, 328; 

fuel, 193. 
Dannebrog's Island, 118. 
Darwin, Charles, 48, 317, 346. 
Davidson. Prof. George, 318. 
Davis, Dr. G. G., 280. 
Davis Strait, 28, 46, 54; depth, 313 ; 

geology of sides of, 29 ; limit 

of migration of plants, 202, 205, 

207, 369. 
Dawson, Dr. George M., 304, 319, 

352. 
Dawson, Sir William, 210, 235, 315, 

321, 325. • 

Decomposition of gneiss, 292. 
De Geer, Baron Gerard, 329, 330, 

336, 349. 
Delaware Bay, submarine fiord, 315. 
Kiver, 376. 



396 



INDEX. 



Delta fans, 291. 

De Eance, C. E., 324. 

Dewell, J. D., x. 

Devil's Dining Table, 36, 43, 381. 

Devil's Thumb, 115. 

Diapensia, 193. 

Dickson, Oscar, 270. 

Disco Bay, 10, 70, 108, 109, 117, 276. 

Disco Island, 111, 114, 207, 208, 210, 

288, 296, 321. 
Dixon, Capt. G. W., vii. 
Dogs, Eskimo, 108, 115, 217, 219, 

240, 282, 286, 295. 
Dolphins, 222, 235. 
Domino gneiss, 35. 
Harbour, 27, 35. 
Down, eider, 237. 
Drayson, Major- Gen. A. W., 340, 

342. 
Dredging, 289. 
Drift in Greenland, 291. 
Driftless area east of Bowdoin Bay, 

291, 374 ; of Wisconsin, 374. 
Driftwood, 55, 64, 73, 106, 325. 
Drumlins, 291, 306. 
Drygalski, E. von, 302. 
Ducks, eider, 89, 105, 106, 109, 165, 

167, 187, 237. 
Durand, report on Greenland flora, 

194, 195. 
Dyche, Prof. L. L., 296. 

Eastern settlement, 100, 105, 118, 

169, 172. 
Eccentricity of the earth's orbit, 

336-338, 343, 355. 
Egede, Hans, 109, 130, 131, 153, 

• 176, 249, 250. 
Egedesminde, 108, 109, 261. 
Eggs, 237, 239, 296. 
Ekallumiut, 119. 
Ellesmere Land, 289. 
Elm, fossil, 210. 
Emerson, Prof. B. K., 339. 



Englacial drift, 267, 269, 289, 291, 

306, 308, 311. 
Epeirogenic theory ■ of the causes 

of the Ice Age, 344-347, 352. 
Epeirogenic uplifts, 305, 316, 317, 

338, 345, 346, 352, 359, 360. 
Erhardt, J. C, 45, 46. 

Eric the Bed, 69, 169, 219. 

Eric's Fiord, 100. 

Ermine, 219. 

Erosion, by glaciers, 29, 219, 293, 
305, 306, 371; by streams, 29, 
312, 313, 321, 322, 376. 

Eskers, 41, 293, 306. 

Eskimos catechists, 84, 90, 160 ; dis- 
tribution, 116, 127 ; dress, 46, 49, 
89, 166, 284 ; education, 167, 178 ; 
effects of contact with civiliza- 
tion, 48, 151, 387, 388; charac- 
teristics, 84, 117 ; food, 127, 164, 
192; hardships, 150, 168; im- 
plements of chase, 89, 104, 144, 
223; language, 128 v 129; mean- 
ing of word, 127 ; morality, 149 ; 
music, 156, 162, 167 ; nominally 
Christians, 178; oil lamps, 146, 
164, 386; origin and develop- 
ment, 128, 332; personal ap- 
pearance, 134; physical adjust- 
ment to their surroundings, 384- 
387 ; primitive religion, 1 29 ; race 
affiliation, 128, 134; religious 
services, 157 ; sanitary condi- 
tion, 148, 387 ; settlements, 82 ; 
social customs, 153, 167 ; super- 
stition, 90, 130 ; women, 162, 
183. 

Eskimos of the North Atlantic, 
chapter on, 127-168. 

Ethiopian zoological region, 214. 

Europe, Champlain subsidence, 
328, 355; glacial drift, 348; 
ice sheet, 245, 298, 306, 328, 

339, 349, 354 ; map, 356. 



INDEX. 



397 



European plants in Greenland, 

192, 202, 205, 369. 
Europeans in Greenland, chapter 

on, 169-187. 
Evans, Sir John, 342. 
Excursions on coast of Greenland, 

chapter on, 66-98. 
Explorations of the inland ice, 

chapter on, 245-296. 

Eabricius, 253. 

Eairchild, Prof. H. L., 359. 

Falcon arctic expeditions, 285, 287. 

Falsan, Dr. Albert, 337, 351. 

Famine, 44, 45, 153-168. 

Farewell, Cape, 58, 66, 101, 362. 

Faroe Islands, route of migration 
of plants and animals, 202, 
216, 331. 

Farrell, Capt. W. J., ix. 

Fauna, 214-244, 311 ; European 
affinity, 216. 

Fausboll, Miss, 180. 

Feilden, Capt. H. W., 210, 323, 324, 

Ferns, 194, 197, 299 ; fossil, 208, 209. 

Fig trees, fossil, in Greenland, 209. 

Figwort family, 196. 

Fiord seal, 226, 228. 

Fiords, eroded by streams, 312, 
320, 328, 352; soundings of 
depth, 312, 315, 328 ; subma- 
rine, 315, 318, 319, 345, 366; 
vegetation, 191, 193, 194, 195. 

Fire-arms of doubtful advantage, 
89, 152, 387. 

Fires in Labrador, periodic, 38, 44. 

Fishes of Greenland, 239-242. 

Five-linger, 197, 198. 

Flies, 243. 

Flint, W. F., on flora of the White 
Mountains, 204. 

Floe ice in Baffin Bay, 11, 13; of 
Davis Strait, 54, 55 ; of Spitz - 
bergen current, 39, 62, 69. 



Flora, 188-213, 311 ; circumpolar 
species extending to the south 
temperate zone, 201 ; effect of 
the Ice Age, 203, 212, 213. 

Florida, epeirogenic uplift, 315. 

Flower and Lydekker, 214, 217, 
220, 236. 

Flowers of Greenland, 68, 76, 86, 
117, 120, 191, 194, 196, 282; on 
nunataks, 198. 

Foehn winds, 123, 270, 275. 

Fontaine, Prof. W. M., 209. 

Forbes, J. D., 293, 297, 303. 

Fordyce, J. B., x. 

Forestian interglacial stages, 350, 
358. 

Forests on the Malaspina ice sheet, 

299, 307. 

Fossil marine shells, Pleistocene, 

300, 323, 324, 325, 326, 329. 
Fossil plants of Greenland, 207-213. 
Foulke Fiord, 220. 

Fox, arctic, 21, 217, 282. 

Fox. the. 14, 15. 

Franklin, Sir J., 13. 15. 

Franz Josef Fiord. 118, 206. 312, 

313. 
Frederiksdal, 57, 62, 68, 101, 118. 
Frederikshaab, vi, 53, 54, 64, 66, 71, 

101. 
Frederikshaab Glacier 198, 252, 264, 

265. 
Frost snow, 279. 
Fuel in Greenland, 193. 
Fungi, 197. 

Gable Glacier, 308, 311, 313. 

Garde, Lieut., on inland ice, 285. 

Gardner, G. W., x. 

Gardner, J. S., 210, 321. 

Geikie, Prof. James, 336, 339, 349, 

351, 358. 
Gentian, 196. 
Geology of Greenland, 70, 111-113, 



398 



INDEX. 



207, 208, 321, 373 ; of Labrador, 
33-36, 40-41, 370. 

German expedition to eastern 
Greenland, plants collected, 
197. 

Germany, glacial drift, 348. 

Giants' Causeway, 36. 

Giesecke, 253 ; on Greenland flora, 
194. 

Gilbert, G. K., 317, 339, 341, 357. 

Glacial lakes, 272, 274, 353, 357, 359. 

Glacial man in Europe and Amer- 
ica, evidence of, 382. 

Glacial period, 206, 346 ; duration 
of, 344, 360; epochs, 351, 352, 
355, 360. 

Glacial rivers, 260, 266, 271, 272, 
275, 278. 

Glacial striae, 37, 40, 41, 372, 373. 

Glacier Bay, Alaska, 301, 303, 319. 

Glacier gardens, 197, 375. 

Glaciers, existing, 362. 

Glaciers of Greenland, 9, 51, 66, 67, 
75, 76, 77, 82, 88, 90, 93, 99, 101, 
102, 104, 114, 261, 289, 296 ; con- 
ditions of their formation, 200 ; 
erosion, 291, 293, 305; granular 
structure, 269, 292 ; rates of now, 
110, 115, 261-263, 289, 302, 309, 
314 ; stratification, 290, 291, 308, 
309 ; theories of motion, 86, 95, 
293. 

Gneiss, decomposing, 593 ; Domino, 
35 ; Laurentian, 33. 

Godhavn, 111, 289. 
district of, 104-106, 111, 179. 

Godthaab, 64, 104, 123, 172, 178, 
192, 289. 

Goodchild, J. G., 329. 

Graah, W. A., on Spitzbergen ice 
current, 57-59. 
on coast about Ekallumiut, 119, 

121. 
on Eskimo customs, 153,154-157. 



Grampus, 235. 

Grand Falls, 37, 41, 288. 

Grand Eiver, Labrador, 287. 

Grant Land, 323. 

Granulation of glacier ice, 269, 
293. 

Grasses, 193, 195, 196, 198, 199. 

Gray, Prof. Asa, on the circum- 
polar flora, 114, 201, 203, 205, 
212, 215, 364. 

Gray seal, 231. 

Greely, Gen. A. W., 117, 124, 325. 

Green Mountains, Vermont, 304; 
plants as in Greenland, 198. 

Greenland, area, 247, 309 ; climatic 
conditions, 69, 105, 109, 121 
coast in detail, chapter on, 99- 
126 ; discovery of, 169, 174, 176 
exploration of, 66-98, 169-178 
245-296; exports of, 101, 184 
famines and epidemics, 44, 153 
168 ; fiords of, 10, 11, 66, 71, 75 
80, 85-87, 90-98, 99, 101, 104, 106 
108, 116, 312, 323 ; floods in, 83 
government, 152, 179; inland 
ice, 10, 72, 94, 99, 101, 103, 109, 
117, 198, 245-296 ; land connec- 
tion, former, 202 ; literature, 
173; name of, 67, 188; "out- 
skirts" of, 66, 67, 109, 276, 373; 
population, 100, 101, 105, 106, 
108, 109,111,114, 119, 174, 387; 
snowfall, 9, 84, 366 ; tempera- 
ture, 121-126, 279, 285, 286; 
winds, 123, 270, 284. 

Grinnell expeditions, plant collec- 
tions, 194. 

Grinnell Glacier, 51. 

Grinnell Land, 292, 321 ; fossil 
fauna, 324, 325; fossil flora, 
209, 210, 211. 

Gulf Stream, 64, 316, 317, 363. 

Gulls, 75, 238. 

Gunnibjorn, 169. 



INDEX. 



399 



Hail, 279. 

Halibut, 109, 241. 

Hall, Capt., 15, 16, 51. 

Halos, 279. 

Hamilton Inlet, 12, 23, 28, 35, 37, 
42, 43, 44, 372. 
River, 37, 101. 

Hammer, on flow of glaciers, 262. 

Hanging glaciers, 76, 90. 

Hansa, the, 59-62, 101, 118. 

Hare, arctic, 220, 282. 

Harp seal, 229. 

Harrison, J. B., 316. 

Haven, Jens, 45. 

Hawkweed, 196. 

Hayes, Dr. Isaac I., 218, 220, 225, 
240, 248; journey on the ice 
sheet, 255, 281 ; plant collec- 
tions, 195. 

Heath family, 191, 194, 196. 

Hebron, 46. 

Heer, on the fossil -floras of Green- 
land, 208, 210, 321. 

Hegemann, Capt., 60. 

Heilprin, Prof. Angelo, 215, 282. 

Helland, Dr. Amund, 11, 110, 261, 
263, 302, 321. 

Helvetian (Aftonian) interglacial 
stage, 350, 354. 

Henley Harbour, 23, 35, 36, 43. 

Hepaticese, 195. 

Herschel, Sir John, 341. 

Hilgard, Prof. E. W., 319. 

Hill, Prof. E. T., 316. 

Hind, H. Y., 42, 43. 

Hitchcock, Prof. C. H., 306, 320, 
337, 351. 

Holarctic zoological and botanical 
region, 215. 

Holm, Capt., cited, 119, 206, 262. 

Hoist, Dr. N. O., 103, 267-269, 306, 
337, 351. 

Holsteinborg, vii, 15, 57, 71, 80, 108 ; 
district of, 106, 108. 
27 



Hooker, Dr. Joseph D., on the cir- 

cumpolar flora, 201, 203, 215. 
Hopedale, 27, 44, 46, 49. 
Horsetail, 197, 209. 
Houses of the Eskimos. See Igloos. 
Howorth, Sir Henry H., 206. 
Hudson Eiver submarine fiord, 315, 

320. 
Humboldt Glacier, 116, 248, 281, 282, 

370. 
Humpback whale, 234 ; fossil, 235. 
Huntington, J. H., on the flora of 

the White Mountains, 204. 

Ice Age, causes, 211, 215, 305, 334- 
347, 352, 362; continuity and 
unity, 337, 349, 351 ; duration, 
344, 360; epochs and stages, 
348-361. 

Ice, limits on Greenland Mountains, 
199, 200. 
of the Labrador current, chapter 
on, 1-22. 

Icebergs, 1-11, 42, 51, 53, 54, 99, 103, 
104, 246, 282. 

Iceland, flora, 205 ; route of migra- 
tion of plants and animals, 202, 
216, 331. 

Iceland moss, 192. 

Ice sheet, antarctic, 245, 246, 298 : 
of Europe, 245, 298, 306, 328, 
339, 354 ; map, 356 ; of Green- 
land, 249, 254, 283, 287, 297; 
altitude, 198, 272, 274, 278, 282, 
283, 286, 354 ; area, 247, 307, 354 ; 
explorations, 245-296 ; formerly 
greater extent, 207,261,269, 291 ; 
slopes, 256, 277, 304; streams 
from summer melting, 260, 266, 
271, 272, 275, 278; of North 
America, 246, 298, 304, 306, 354, 
359 ; map, 353. 

Ice sheets, comparison of present 
and Pleistocene, 297-309 ; effect 



400 



INDEX. 



to depress land areas, 330, 346 ; 

recession, 349, 356, 357, 35y ; 

thickness, 354. 
Igaliko, 100, 172. 
Igloos, 73, 78, 82, 83, 144, 158, 385, 

387. 
Ikamiut, vii, 78, 80, 143 ; Fiord, 82, 

88, 93, 106, 157, 373. 
Ikersuak, 99. 
Illuidlek Island, 62. 
Independence Bay, 117, 281, 286, 

293. 
Indian Harbour, 44. 
Ingleiiekl Gulf, vii, 116, 195, 225, 

256, 269, 280, 287, 288, 308, 

381. 
Inland ice, explorations, 245-296. 
Insects, 243, 282. 
Interglacial stages, 336, 349, 354, 

361. 
Iowa, plants as in Greenland, 1 94. 
Iowan stage and formation of glacial 

drift, 350, 353, 355, 360. 
Iron masses, 294. 

ores, beds of, in Labrador, 40. 
Iroquois glacial lake and stage, 351, 

353, 358. 
Islands of Greenland, vegetation, 

189, 192. 
Isortok Fiord, 71, 106, 373. 
Itivdliarsuk Glacier, 262. 
Ivigiut, 15, 66, 70, 80, 101, 103, 185. 

Jakobshavn, 109, 124; district, 109 ; 

Fiord, 312 ; glacier, vii, 109, 110, 

258, 261, 263, 294. 
James Bay, Champlain subsidence, 

326. 
Jamieson, T. F., 328. 
Jeannette, the, 57. 
Jeffreys, Dr. J. Gwyn, 325. 
Jellyfishes, 244. 
Jensen, Lieutenant J. A. D., 96, 103, 

198, 264-267. 



Jensen's nunataks, 198, 252, 264- 

267, 373. 
Jones, Prof. T. Eupert, 236. 
Jones Sound, 289. 
Jukes-Browne, A. J., 316. 
Julianshaab, 57, 99-101, 121, 125, 

172, 255, 262. 
Juniper, 68, 191. 

i. 
Kalstenius, 288. 
Kames, 291. 
Kane, Dr. E. K., 12, 116, 225, 248; 

plant collections, 194. 
Kansan stage and formation of 

glacial drift, 350, 353, 354, 360. 
Karajat Glacier, 262. 
Karlesfane, Torfin, 173. 
Kayak, 46, 75, 80, 89, 139, 141, 145, 

162, 223, 385. 
Keely, Dr. E. N , 280. 
Kendall, Percy F., 329, 337. 
Kenaston, C, 38. 
Kennedy Channel, 117, 313, 332. 
Kentucky blue grass in Greenland, 

193. 
Ken-, Dr., 134. 
Kersting, B., x. 
Kingait Mountains, 52. 
" King's Mirror," 249. 
Kite arctic expeditions, 282, 295. 
Kitti wakes, 87, 165, 167, 238. 
Koldewey, Capt., 56, 60, 118, 312, 

313. 
Kome, fossil plant beds, 208, 209, 

213. 
Kornerup, A., 103, 198, 262, 265, 

267 ; plant collections, 198. 
Kornok, 268. 

Kryoconite, 200, 261, 271; produc- 
ing cavities on the inland ice, 

271, 273. 

Labrador, 287 ; animals, 224; banks, 
42; capital of, 28; changes of 



INDEX. 



401 



level in, 43, 326; chapels, 27; 
coast, chapter on, 23-52, 370; 
commerce, 12, 27, 32; current, 
ice of the, chapter on, 1-22; 
Eskimos, 44-51 ; fisheries, 24, 
27 ; glacial features, 31, 37 ; gov- 
ernment, 23, 25 ; Indians, 44 ; 
interior, 34, 37-42; islands, 29, 
43 ; lakes, 41, 42 ; Moravian mis- 
sions, 45, 46, 48 ; plants, 194, 202 ; 
postal service, 25; scenery, 24, 
29, 31 ; temporary residents, 7, 
24, 33; terraces, 31,42. 

Ladoga, Lake, 227. 

Lafayette period, 333, 346, 352. 

Lahontan, Lake, 339. 

Lamplugh, G. W., 337. 

Lancaster Sound, depth, 313. 

Lange, on the Greenland flora, 
205. 

Langley, Prof. S. P., 335. 

Lapland flora, 201, 202, 205. 

Lapps, on the inland ice, 270-275. 

Latitude, changes of, 342, 343. 

Laurel, fossil, 209. 

Laurentian river, 314. 

Laurentide highlands, 354. ■ 

Lavas, Miocene, of Greenland and 
Iceland, 208, 296, 321. 

Lawson, Dr. Andrew G, 357. 

Le Conte, Prof. Joseph, 318, 319, 
341, 344. 

Leda clays, 326. 

Lehigh Eiver, 376. 

Leif, 171. 

Lemming, 219, 324. 

Lesquereux, Dr. Leo, 212. 

Leverett, Frank, 306, 354, 357, 376. 

Lewis, Prof. H. Carvill, 329, 348. 

Lichens, 68, 192, 195, 197, 199, 200. 

Lichtenau, 68, 101, 123. 

Lichtenfels, coast sinking, 328. 

Lieber, O. M., 34. 

Lievely, 111. 



Lignite in Grinnell Land, 210. 

Lindahl, Dr. Josua, 267. 

Linden, fossil, 210. 

Lindenkohl, 315. 

Linnets, 62. 

Liverworts, 197. 

Lockwood, 117. 

Loess, 357. 

Logan, Sir William, 340. 

Louisburg, Cape Breton Island, 328, 
330. 

Lousewort, 191, 196. 

Low, A. P., on Grand Falls, 37-42 ; 
on famine at Fort Chimo, 44, 45. 

Lundy, glacial lake, 359. 

Lutken, zoological catalogues, 239, 
244. 

Lutherans in Greenland, 176, 178. 

Lyakhoff Islands, 211. 

Lydekker, on arctic fox, 217; rein- 
deer, 220 ; zoological regions, 
214. 

Lyell, Sir Charles, 297, 344. 

Mackintosh, D., 339. 
Magdalen Islands, 224. 
Magnolia, fossil, 209, 210. 
Maigaard, Christian, 276. 
Maine, plants as in Greenland, 192. 
Malaspina Glacier, 269, 298-301, 307, 

309. 
Mammals of Greenland, 216-236. 
Man, during the Glacial period, 352, 

migration to America, 332, 333, 
352. 

origin by evolution, 215. 
Maples, fossil, 210. 
Maps, North American ice sheet, 
353. 

European ice sheet, 356. 
Markham, C. K., 136, 138. 
McClintock, 14, 15. 
McCormick Bay, 280, 295. 
MeGee, W J, 336, 337, 349. 



402 



INDEX. 



Mecklenburgian glacial stage, 350, 

357. 
Meddelelser om Gronland, 263. 
Melville Bay, 9, 14, 66, 115, 287, 288, 

293, 296, 370. 
Mer dc Glace, ablation, 303, 306. 
Meteorites, supposed, 294. 
Meyer, E., 194. 
Migrations of animals, 215, 216, 219, 

229, 232, 311, 332, 369, 370 ; of 

plants, 201, 202, 205, 206, 207, 

209, 212, 215, 311, 332, 369. 
Miocene strata in Greenland, 208, 

210, 321. 
Mirage, 272. 

Miranda, the,v-ix, 21, 28, 50, 53,80. 
Missionaries, influence of, 48, 49. 
Mohn, Prof, temperature on the ice 

sheet, 279. 
Molluscs, 225, 242, 316, 326, 330. 
Moraines, 42, 77, 92, 97, 103, 104, 

266, 267, 268, 291, 299, 306, 309, 

349, 357, 372, 373 ; in Germany, 

348, 350, 357. 
Moravians in Greenland, 101, 178 ; 

Labrador, 45, 46, 48, 49. 
Morch, zoological catalogues, 242. 
Morgan, L. H., 129. 
Morse, or walrus, 224. 
Moseley, notes on the Challenger, 

246, 298. 
Mosquitoes, 77, 117, 243. 
Mosses, 68, 73, 86, 195, 197, 199. 
Moths, 243. 

Moulins, 96, 260, 272, 300. 
Mountain-building epochs, 338, 346. 
Mountains of Greenland, 66, 72, 75, 

85, 86, 99, 101, 109, 188, 206, 

248, 255, 276, 283, 370. 
Muir Glacier, 301-306. 
Murray, Dr. John, 247, 372. 
Musk ox, 116, 117, 118, 219, 282, 293, 

324, 332, 370. 
Mussels, 242. 



Nachvak, Labrador, 44, 326. 

Nagsutok Fiord, 70. 

Nain, 46. 

Nansen, Dr. Fridtjof, 56, 57, 62, 105, 
119, 134, 189, 232, 243, 248, 249, 
250, 251, 258, 260, 261, 321, 322, 
323, 342, 367 ; journey across 
the ice sheet, 277-280. 

Nares expedition, 210, 236, 323. 

Narsalik Fiord, 103. 

Narwhal, 234, 296. 

Nathorst, on the Spitzbergen flora, 
206. 

Navy Cliff, 281. 

Nearctic zoological region, 214. 

Neolithic implements, 339. 

Neotropical zoological region, 215. 

Neudeckian interglacial stage, 350, 
355. 

Neve, 248, 274, 276, 279, 280, 283, 
285, 307, 367. 

Newberry, glacial lake, 359. 

Newfoundland. 7, 13, 21, 23, 25, 29, 
32, 173, 371, 372, 390. 

New Herrnhut, 178. 

New Siberia Islands, fossil flora, 
211. 

Niagara Falls, measuring the Post- 
glacial period, 339. 

Nikitin, S., 337, 351. 

Nordenskjold, Baron A. E., 108, 174, 
200, 248 ; journeys on the ice 
sheet, 260, 270-275, 279. 

Norfolkian interglacial stage, 349, 
352. 

Norse ruins, 100, 105, 111, 172, 381. 

North American ice sheet, 246, 298, 
304, 306, 349, 354; latest rem- 
nants, 359 ; map, 353. 

North American plants in Green- 
land, 192. 

North Stromfiord, 108. 

Norway, epeirogenic movements, 
329. 



INDEX. 



403 



Nugsuak (or Noursoak) Peninsula, 

111, 114, 208, 321. 
Nukagpiak Mountain, 74, 77, 94. 
Nukaryik, 118. 
Nunarsuit, 125. 
Nunataks, 35, 92, 94, 103, 197, 252, 

255, 264-267, 270, 369 ; animals 

on, 216; plants on, 198, 206. 

207, 213, 216, 369, 373. 

Oak, fossil in Greenland, 209, 210. 
Obliquity of the ecliptic, 340, 343. 
Ocean currents, 12, 43, 56 ; influ- 
ence on climate, 211, 331, 364. 
Ohio River, gorge of, 376. 
Okkak, 46. 
Orchis family, 196. 
Oriental zoological region, 214. 
Osterbygd, 100. 
Ovifak, iron masses, 296. 

Paarss, exploration of inland ice, 250. 

Packard, Prof. A. S., 27, 34, 35, 44, 
49, 215, 218. 

Pakitsok Fiord, 276. 

Palsearctic zoological region, 214. 

Palaeolithic implements, 339, 352. 

Panama, Isthmus of, 317, 318. 

Patagonia, 338, 345. 

Patoot, fossil plant beds, 209, 213. 

Payer Peak, 206. 

Peabody Bay, 248. 

Pearl wort, 197. 

Peary, Lieutenant E. E., vii, 217, 
220, 225, 240, 247, 248, 256, 367, 
381 ; journeys on the ice sheet, 
276, 280-287, 293; explorations 
of the coast, 287, 296. 

Peary, Mrs., 281, 285, 287. 

Poat, 193, 327. 

Penck, Dr. Albrecht, 336, 349. 

Permian glaciation, 337, 341, 347. 

Persimmon, fossil in Greenland, 
209. 



Petermann Fiord, 117, 281. 

Petermann Peak, 118, 206. 

Phenogamous plants of Greenland 
and Labrador, 194, 196, 201. 

Philadelphia Academy of Natural 
Sciences, 282. 

Piblockto, 240, 286. 

Pine, fossil, 210. 

Pink family, 195, 196. 

Pinnacle formation, St. Elias range, 
300. 

Pinnipeds, 222-233. 

Plane trees, fossil, 209, 210. 

Plants of Greenland, 73, 99, 188-213 ; 
edible species, 109, 119, 120, 189, 
192; fossil, 207-213, 310, 321; 
relative abundance of, 197, 
204. 

Pleistocene and present ice sheets 
compared, 297-309. 

Pleistocene changes of level, 310- 
333, 371-380. 

Pleistocene period, 300, 310 ; dura- 
tion, 305, 344, 360. 

Pliocene period, 318, 320, 331. 

Polandian glacial stage, 350, 355. 

Polaris, the, 16. 18, 20. 

Polaris Bay, 325. 
Charles, 16, 21. 

Poplar, fossil, 208, 209, 210. 

Poppy, arctic, 196, 198, 199. 

Porpoises, 222, 235. 

Port Foulke, 195, 255, 257. 

Postglacial oscillations, 329, 330. 

Postglacial period, 331, 333; dura- 
tion, 339, 340. 

Potomac formation, fossil flora, 
209. 

Preglacial flora, 206, 207, 213, 330. 

Preglacial land elevation, 319, 331, 
^345, 346, 352, 355, 373. 

Prestwich, Prof. Joseph, 337, 339, 
340. 

Primrose, 196. 



404 



INDEX. 



Prince Rupert's Inlet, 313. 
Ptarmigan, 236, 2S2. 
Puget Sound, 319, 320. 
Puisortok Glacier, 119. 
Punch Bowl, the, 23, 29, 389. 

Quaternary era, 215, 316, 318, 319, 
335, 337, 347. 

Kae, Dr. John, on inland ice, 
255. 

Rainfall, 279. 

Raman, 46. 

Raven, 237, 275. 

" Razorback " whales, 234. 

Recent period, 331, 333, 339, 346. 

Redcliff Peninsula, 295. 

Redclifre House, 283. 

Red fish, 241. 

Red snow, 200, 271. 

Redwood trees, fossil, 209, 210. 

Reid, Prof. H. F., 301. 

Reindeer, 45, 70, 76, 105, 106, 108, 
116, 118, 119, 152, 187, 199,220- 
222, 324, 332, 370, 381. 

Reinhardt, avifauna, 236 ; Crusta- 
cea, 244. 

Resolute, the, 13, 14. 

Rhododendron, 68 ., 191. 

Ricketts, Dr. Charles, 318. 

Rigel, the, vii-ix, 28, 170, 389. 

Ringed seal, 226, 324. 

Rink, Dr. Henry, 10, 11, 56, 99, 101, 
132,138,170, 172,176,178, 182, 
184, 386 ; cited, on climatic con- 
ditions, 121, 125, 126; on the 
flora, 68, 112, 189, 191, 192, 193, 
195, 198, 199 ; on the fauna, 216, 
217, 219, 221, 222, 225, 227, 228, 
230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 236, 237, 
239, 244; on the inland ice, 10, 
99, 247, 253, 254, 263, 322. 

Ritenbenk, district of, 111. 

Robin, 236. 



Romaine River, 41. 
Root, W. S., x. 

Rorquals, 234. 

Rose family, 194, 195, 197. 

Ross, 46 ; observations of the ant- 
arctic ice sheet, 246, 298. 

Rush family, 196. 

Russell, Prof. I. C, 269, 298, 300, 
306, 339. 

Ryder, on flow of glaciers, 262. 

Sabbaths in Greenland, 157 et seq. 

Sable Island, 224. 

Saddleback seal, 13, 106, 229. 

Sadlen Mountains, 105. 

Saguenay Fiord, 37, 315, 326, 
371. 

Salisbury, Prof. R. D., 295, 336. 348, 
349. 

Salmon trout, 75, 241. 

Sandstone beds, 37, 111. 

Saskatchewan interglacial stage, 
352. 

Sassafras, fossil, 209. 

Saxifrage species, 191, 194, 195, 196, 
198, 199, 201. 

Saxonian glacial stage, 349, 354. 

Scandinavia, flora, 201, 202, 203 ; 
preglacial elevation, 328 ; sub- 
sidence in the Champlain 
epoch, 329. 

Scandinavian plateau, 331. 

Scanian glacial stage, 349, 352. 

Scarboro', Ontario, interglacial 
beds, 358. 

Schafrher, on inland ice, 255. 

Schjodte, zoological catalogues, 
243, 244. 

Schwatka, Lieut., 146. 

Sclater, on zoological regions, 214. 

Scoresby, 118. 

Sea anemones, 244. 

Sea cow or horse, 224. 

Sea fowl, 237. 



INDEX. 



405 



Sea unicorn, 234. 

Seal hunting, 114, 222. 

Seals, 18, 20, 21, 64, 89, 106, 109, 114, 
152, 164, 222, 226-233, 296, 388, 
389. 

Seaweeds, 192, 242, 324. 

Sedges, 193, 195, 196, 199. 

Sequoia, fossil, 209, 210, 211. 

Sermersut, 81, 85, 190. 

Serrnilsialik Glacier, 285. 

Servant-girl question, 183. 

Shale, 112. 

Shaler, Prof. N. S.,' 306, 313, 315, 
336, 376. 

Sharks, 239. 

Sherard Osborne Fiord, 117, 282. 

Siberian driftwood, 56, 64, 65, 323, 
381. 

Simpson, C. T., 316. 

Ski, 270, 275. 

Skins, preparation of, 146, 165. 

Sledge journeys on the ice sheet, 
270, 280, 286, 294, 295. 

Sleeping bags, 74, 285. 

Smith Sound, 9, 16, 24, 225, 293, 313, 
331. 

Snow, limits on Greenland moun- 
tains, 199, 200. 

Snow blindness, 272, 284. 

Snowdrifts on edge of the ice sheet, 
291. 

Snowfall on the ice sheet, 279, 281, 
293, 367. 

Snow houses, 29. 

Snowshoes, 270, 275, 284. 

Snowy Peak, 15. 

Sogne Fiord, 328. 

Sorrel, 198. 

South America, epeirogenic move- 
ments, 317. 

South Stromfiord, 106. 

Spencer, Prof. J. W., 314, 315, 316, 
357, 359. 

Sperm whale, 234. 



Spiders, 244. 

Spitzbergen, driftwood, 323 ; flora, 

206 ; fossil Miocene flora, 210 ; 

ice in Davis Strait, chapter on, 

53-65. 
Sponges, 244. 
Spruce, 299 ; fossil, 210. 
St. Anthony Falls, measuring post- 
glacial time, 338. 
St. Augustine, Florida, 316. 
St. Elias range, 298, 300, 361. 
St. John's, Newfoundland, 1, 5, 13, 

21, 25, 33, 50, 53. 
St. Lawrence glacial lake and stage, 

351, 353, 359. 
St. Lawrence Valley, 314, 326, 327, 

345, 351, 359, 371. 
Starfishes, 244. 
Star wort, 197. 
Stebbins, K. O., x. 
Steenstrup, cited, 206, 262, 302. 
Storms on the ice sheet, 257, 281, 

284, 286, 287. 
Subglacial drift, 267, 306. 
Subglacial streams, 71, 76, 91, 103, 

299, 303. 
Submarine river valleys, 315, 318, 

345. 
Sukkertoppen, vi, vii, 65, 67, 71, 75, 

80, 103, 106, 107, 143, 157, 180, 

194, 373. 
district of, 106. 
Sumach, fossil, 209. 
Sun's heat, 335. 
Superglacial drift, 267. 

streams, 96, 271, 275, 278. 
Swarte-Huk peninsula, 115. 
Sweden, epeirogenic movements, 

329. 
Sycamore, fossil, 209, 210. 

Tahiti, 48. 
Tasiusak, 115. 
Taylor, F. B., 355. 



406 



INDEX. 



Temperature on the ice sheet, 256, 

260, 275, 279, 284, 285. 
Terraces, 112, 113. 
Tertiary era, 215, 316, 319, 328, 335, 

337, 346, 347. 
Tertiary strata in Greenland, 208, 

210-213, 321. 
Tertiary warm circumpolar climate, 

211, 366. 
Teton Mountains, 72. 
Thftllophytes, 195. 
Thompson, A. E., x. 
Thomson, Sir Wyville, 246, 298, 

318. 
Thong seal, 231. 
Thorvald, 173. 
Tickle, 30, 33. 
Tides in Baffin Bay, 312. 
Tigris, the, 20. 
Till, 290, 337. 
Toll, Baron, 211. 
Toronto interglacial stage, 350, 353, 

358. 
Torsukatak Fiord, 109 ; glacier, 262. 
Traprock, 35, 63, 70. 
Trondhjem, 176. 
Tryggvasson, Olaf, 171. 
Tub Island, 35. 
Tuckermann's Eavine^ 377. 
Tulip tree, fossil, 209. 
Turbarian glacial stages, 350. 
Tyndall, John, 297. 
Tyrrell, Prof. J. B., 359. 
Tyson, Capt., 16, 64. 

Umanak, 111, 113, 123, 125 ; district 
of, 114; Fiord, 9, 115, 117, 198, 
206, 234, 259, 262. 

Umiak, 89, 108, 139, 161. 

Ungava Bay, 34, 37, 40, 44. 

Upernivik, 115, 121, 125, 182, 194, 
262. 

Valle, J. F., x. 



Victoria Tickle, 30. 
Violets, 196. 

Viscosity of glacial ice, 293. 
Volcanic rocks of Greenland, 208, 
296, 321. 

Wahnschaffe, Dr. Felix, 336. 
Waigat passage, 111, 208, 283, 

321. 
Walcott, G. D., 371. 
Wallace, A. E., 214, 318, 338. 
Walnut, fossil in Greenland, 209, 

210. 
Walrus, 109, 222, 224-226. 
Ward, Prof. L. F., on fossil floras of 

Greenland, 208. 
Warming, on the Greenland flora, 

205, 206. 
Warren, glacial lake and stage, 351, 

353, 357, 358. 
Warren, Pa., 376. 
Water lily, fossil, 210. 
Waterfalls, measuring postglacial 

time, 338, 339. 
Westerbygd, 105. 
Western settlement, 105, 172. 
West Indies, epeirogenic move- 
ments, 314. 
| Whale Sound, 116, 288. 
' Whales, 108, 222, 233-236 ; fossil in 

Cham plain beds, 233. 
White birch, 191, 205. 
White Mountains, N. H., 304 ; plants 

as in Greenland, 192, 193, 198, 

204. 
Whitlow grass, 196. 
Whortleberry; 31, 192. 
Whymper, Edward, on inland ice, 

257, 259, 261. 
Williams, E. H., 376. 
Willowherb, 191. 
Willows, 68, 191, 193, 196, 199. 
Winchell, Professor N. H., 306, 

338. 



INDEX. 



407 



Winds on the ice sheet, 256, 281, 

284, 286, 291. 
Wintergreen, 196. 
Wisconsin, stage and formation of 

glacial drift, 350, 353, 357. 
Wolf, arctic, 216, 282, 
Woodpeckers, 236. 
Woodrush, 193. 
Worms, 244, 271. 



Yahtse River, 300. 

Yakutat formation, St. Elias range, 

300. 
York, Cape, 288, 289, 295. 



Zoar, 46. 

Zoological collections, 295 ; regions' 
214, 215. 



THE END. 



c 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 



LIMBING IN THE HIMALAYAS. By William 

Martin Conway, M. A., F. R. G. S., Vice-President of the Al- 
pine Club ; formerly Professor of Art in University College, 
Liverpool. With 300 Illustrations by A. D. McCormick, and 
a Map. 8vo. Cloth, $10.00. 

This work contains a minute record of one of the most important and 
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1892, under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal 
Society, the British Association, and the Government of India. It included 
an exploration of the glaciers at the head of the Bagrot Valley and the great 
peaks in the neighborhood of Rakipushi (25,500 feet) ; an expedition to 
Hispar, at the foot of the longest glacier in the world outside the polar 
regions ; the first definitely recorded passage of the Hispar Pass, the longest 
known pass in the world ; and the ascent of Pioneer Peak (about 23,000 
feet), the highest ascent yet authentically made. No better man could have 
been chosen for this important expedition than Mr. Conway, who has spent 
over twenty years in mountaineering work in the Alps. Already the author 
of nine published books, he has recorded his discoveries in this volume in the 
clear, incisive, and thrilling language of an expert. 

" It would be hard to say too much in praise of this superb work. As a record of 
mountaineering it is almost, if not quite, unique. Among records of Himalayan ex- 
ploration it certainly stands alone. . . . The farther Himalayas . . . have never been 
so faithfully — in other words, so poetically — piesented as in the masterly delicate 
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"This stately volume is a worthy record of a splendid journey. . . , The book is 
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pedition as yet made; it is a most valuable and minute account, based on first-hand 
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Gazette. 

" Mr. Conway's volume is a splendid record of a daring and adventurous scientific 
expedition. . . . What Mr. Whymper did for the Northern Andes, Mr. Conway has 
done for the Karakorum Himalayas." — London Times. 

" It would be difficult to say which of the many classes of readers who will welcome 
the work will find most enjoyment in its fascinating pages. Mr. Conway's pen and Mr. 
McCormick's pencil have made their countrymen partners in their pleasure." — London 
Standard. 

"... In addition to this, Mr. Conway is a man of letters, a student (and a teacher, 
too) of art, a scholar in several languages; one, too, who knows the Latin names ot 
plants, and the use of theodolite and plane table. From him, therefore, if from any 
one, the world had a right to expect a book that should combine accurate observation 
and intelligible reporting with an original and acute record of impressions; nor will 
the world have any reason to be disappointed." — London Athenezum, 

" With its three hundred illustrations we have seldom seen a volume which speaks 
to the eye and understanding so pleasantly and expressively on every page. . . . We 
have an exhaustive panorama of the Himalayan scenery, of the manner in which the 
rough marching was conducted, of ascents achieved under the most dangerous condi- 
tions, and of the troubles and humors of the shifting camps where the coolies rested 
from their labors." — London Sahcrday Review. 

" Perhaps no book of recent date gives a simpler or at the same time more effective 
picture of the truly wonderful mountain regions lying behind the northern barrier of 
India than Mr. Conway's striking volume." — London Telegraph. 



New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

HTHE ICE AGE IN NORTH AMERICA, and Us 

■*■ Bearings upon the Antiquity of Man. By G. Frederick 
Wright, D.U., LL. D., KG. S.A., Professor in Oberlin 
Theological Seminary ; Assistant on the United States Geo- 
logical Survey. With an appendix on " The Probable Cause 
of Glaciation," by Warren Upham, F. G. S.A., Assistant on 
the Geological Surveys of New Hampshire, Minnesota, and 
the United States. New and enlarged edition. With 150 Maps 
and Illustrations. 8vo, 625 pages, and Index. Cloth, $5.00. 

*' Not a novel in all the list of this year's publications has in it any pages of more 
thrilling interest than can be found in this book by Professor Wright. There is noth- 
ing pedantic in the narrative, and the most serious themes and startling discoveries are 
treated with such charming naturalness and simplicity that boys and girls, aswell as 
their seniors, will be attracted to the story, and find it difficult to lay it aside."— New 
York Journal of Comnierce. 

" One of the most absorbing and interesting of all the recent issues in the depart- 
ment of popular science." — Chicago Herald. 

"Though his subject is a very deep one, his style is so very unaffected and per- 
spicuous that even the unscientific reader can peruse it with intelligence and profit. In 
reading such a book we are led almost to wonder that so much that is scientific can be 
put in language so comparatively simple." — New York Observer. 

"The author has seen with his own eyes the most important phenomena of the Ice 
age on this continent from Maine to Alaska. In the work itself, elementary description 
is combined with a broad, scientific, and philosophic method, without abandoning for 
a moment the purely scientific character. Professor Wright has contrived to give the 
whole a philosophical direction which lends interest and inspiration to it, and which in 
the chapters on Man and the Glacial Period rises to something like dramatic intensity." 
— The Independent. 

"... To the great advance that has been made in late years in the accuracy and 
cheapness of processes of photographic reproduction is due a further signal advantage 
that Dr. Wright's work possesses over his predecessors'. He has thus been able to 
illustrate most of the natural phenomena to which he refers by views taken in the field, 
many of which have been generously loaned by the United States Geological Survey, 
in some cases from unpublished material ; and he has admirably supplemented them by 
numerous maps and diagrams." — The Nation. 

TUfAN AND THE GLACIAL PERIOD. By G. 

J-V-l- Frederick Wright, D. D„ LL. D., author of "The Ice 

Age in North America," " Logic of Christian Evidences," etc. 

International Scientific Series. With numerous Illustrations, 

i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 

" It may be described in a word as the best summary of scientific conclusions con- 

cerning the question of man's antiquity as affected by his known relations to geological 

time." — Philadelphia Press. 

" The earlier chapters describing glacial action, and the traces of it in North Amer- 
ica—especially the defining of its limits, such as the terminal moraine of the great 
movement itself— are of great interest and value. The maps and diagrams are of much 
assistance in enabling the reader to grasp the vast extent of the movement." — London 
Spectator. 

New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 



c 



L\ APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 



AMP-FIRES OF A NATURALIST. From the 
Field Notes of Lewis Lindsay Dyche, A. M., M. S., Professor 
of Zoology and Curator of Birds and Mammals in the Kansas 
State University. The Story of Fourteen Expeditions after 
North American Mammals. By Clarence E. Edwords. 
With numerous Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

" It is not always that a professor of zoology is so enthusiastic a sportsman as Prof. 
Dyche. His hunting exploits are as varied as those of Gordon Cumming, for example, 
in South Africa. His grizzly bear is as dangerous as the lion, and his mountain sheep 
and goats more difficult to stalk and shoot than any creatures of the torrid zone. Evi- 
dently he came by his tastes as a hunter from litelong experience." — New York 
Tribune. 

" The book has no dull pages, and is often excitingly interesting, and fully in- 
structive as to the habits, haunts, and nature of wild beasts." — Chicago Inter-Ocean. 

"There is abundance of interesting incident in addition to the scientific element, 
and the illustrations are numerous and highly graphic as to the big game met by the 
hunters, and the hardships cheerfully undertaken."- — Brooklyri Eagle. 

"The narrative is simple and manly and full of the freedom of forests. . . . This 
record of his work ought to awaken the interest of the generation growing up, if only 
by the contrast of his active experience of the resources of Nature and of savage life 
with the background of culture and the environment of educational advantages that 
are being rapidly formed for the students of the United States. Prof. Dyche seems, 
from this account of him, to have thought no personal hardship or exertion wasted in 
his attempt to collect facts, that the naturalist of the future may be provided with com- 
plete and verified ideas as to species v/hich will soon be extinct. This is good work — 
work that we need and that posterity will recognize with gratitude. The illustrations 
of the book are interesting, and the type is clear." — New York Times. 

" The adventures are simply told, but some of them are thrilling of necessity, how- 
ever modestly the narrator does his work. Prof. Dyche has had about as many expe- 
riences in the way of hunting for science as fall to the lot of the mcst fortunate, and 
this recouiital of them is most interesting. The camps from which he worked ranged 
from the Lake of the Woods to Arizona, and northwest to British Columbia, and in 
every region he was successful in securing rare specimens for his museum." — Chicago 
Times. 

" The literary construction is refreshing. The reader is carried into the midst of 
the very scenes of which ths author tells, not by elaborateness of description but by the 
directness and vividness of every sentence, He is given no opportunity to abandon 
the companions with which the book has provided him, for incident is made to follow 
incident with no intervening literary padding. In fact, the book is all action." — Kansas 
City yournai. 

" As an outdoor book of camping and hunting this book possesses a timely 
interest, but it also has the merit of scientific exactness in the descriptions of the 
1 habits, peculiarities, and haunts of wild animals." — Philadelphia Press. 

"But what is most important of all in a narrative of this kind— for it seems to ui 
that 'Camp-Fires of a Naturalist' was written first of all for entertainment— these 
notes neither have been ' dressed up' and their accuracy thereby impaired, nor yet re 
tailed in a dry and statistical manner. The book, in a word, is a plain narrative of 
adventures among the larger American animals." — Philadelphia Bulletin. 

" We recommend it most heartily to old and young alike, and suggest it as a beauti 
ful souvenir volume for those who have seen the wonderful display of mounted animal* 
at the World's Fair."— Tope k a Capital. 



New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 



THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SERIES. 



" Will be hailed with delight by scholars and scientific specialists, and it will be 
gladly received by others who aspire after the useful knowledge it will impart." — New 
York Home Jozirual. 

NOW READY. 

T/fZOMAN'S SHARE IN PRIMITIVE CUL- 
VV TURE. By Otis Tufton Mason, A. M., Curator of the 
Department of Ethnology in the United States National Mu- 
seum. With numerous Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 
"A most interesting resume" of the revelations which science bas made concerning 
the habits of human beings in primitive times, and especially as to the place, the duties, 
and the customs of women."— Philadelphia Inqzcirer. 

" A highly entertaining and instructive book. . . . Prof. Mason's bright, graceful 
style must do much to awaken a lively interest in a study that has heretofore received 
such scant attention."— Baltitnore American. 

" The special charm of Mr. Mason's book is that his studies are based mainly upon 
ctually existing types, rather than upon mere tradition."— Philadelphia Times. 

y^HE PYGMIES. By A. de Quatrefages, late 
■*- Professor of Anthropology at the Museum of Natural History, 
Paris. With numerous Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 

" Probably no one was better equipped to illustrate the general subject than Quatre- 
fageo. While constantly occupied upon the anatomical and osseous phases of his sub- 
ject, he was none the less well acquainted with what literature and history had to say 
concerning the pygmies. . . . This book ought to be in every divinity school in which 
man as well as God is studied, and from which missionaries go out to convert the human 
being of reality and not the man of rhetoric and text-books." — Boston Literary World. 

" It is fortunate that American students of anthropology are able to enjoy as lumi- 
nous a translation of this notable monograph as that which Prof. Starr now submits to the 
public." — Philadelphia Press. 

" It is regarded by scholars entitled to offer an opinion as one of the half-dozen most 
important works of an anthropologist whose ethnographic publications numbered nearly 
one hundred." — Chicago Evening Post. 

^THE BEGINNINGS OF WRITING. By W. J. 

•*■ Hoffman, M. D. With numerous Illustrations'. i2mo. Cloth, 

$1-75- 

This interesting book gives a most attractive account of the rude methods employed 
by primitive man for recording his deeds. The earliest writing consists of pictographs 
which were traced on stone, wood, bone, skins, and various paperlike substances. Dr. 
Hoffman shows how the several classes of symbols used in these records are to be in- 
terpreted, and traces the growth of conventional signs up to syllabaries and alphabets— 
the two classes of signs employed by modern peoples. 

IN PREPARATION. 

THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS. By Dr. Schmelt? 

THE ZUNI. By Frank Hamilton Gushing. 

THE AZTECS. By Mrs. Zelia Nuttall, 

New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

THE STORY OF THE WEST SERIES. 

Edited by Ripley Hitchcock. 

"There is avast extent of territory lying between the Missouri River and the Pacific 
coast which has barely been skimmed over so far. That the conditions of life therein 
are undergoing changes little short of marvelous will be understood when one recalls 
the fact that the first white male child born in Kansas is still living there; and Kansas 
is by no means one of the newer States. Revolutionary indeed has been the upturning 
of the old condition of affairs, and little remains thereof, and less will remain as each 
year goes by, until presently there will be only tradition of the Sioux and Comanches, 
the cowboy life, the wild horse, and the antelope. Histories, many of them, have been 
written about the Western country alluded to, but most if not practically all by outsiders 
who knew not personally that life of kaleidoscopic allurement. But ere it shall have 
vanished forever we are likely to have truthful, complete, and charming portrayals of 
it produced by men who actually know the life and have the power to describe it." — 
Henry Edward Rood, in The Mail and Express. 

NOW READY. 

^HE STOR Y OF THE INDIAN. By George 
•*■ Bird Grinnell, author of " Pawnee Hero Stories," " Blackfoot 
Lodge Tales," etc. i2mo. Cloth. Illustrated. $1.50. 

" A valuable study of Indian life and character. . . . An attractive book, ... in 
large part one in which Indians themselves might have written." — New York Tribune. 

"Among the various books respecting the aborigines of America, Mr. Grinnell's 
easily takes a leading position. He takes the reader directly to the camp-fire and the 
council, and shows us the American Indian as he really is. ... A book which will 
convey much interesting knowledge respecting a race which is now fast passing away." 
— Boston Commercial Bidletin. 

" It must not be supposed that the volume is one only for scholars and libraries of 
reference. It is far more than that. While it is a true story, yet it is a story none the 
less abounding in picturesque description and charming anecdote. We regard it as a 
valuable contribution to American literature." — N. Y. Mail and Express. 

" A most attractive book, which presents an admirable graphic picture of the actual 
Indian, whose home life, religious observances, amusements, together with the various 
phases of his devotion to war and the chase, and finally the effects of encroaching civ- 
ilization, are delineated with a certainty and an absence of sentimentalism or hostile 
prejudice that impart a peculiar distinction to this eloquent story of a passing life." — 
Buffalo Commercial. 

■" No man is better qualified than Mr. Grinnell to introduce this series with the story 
of the original owner of the West, the North American Indian. Long acquaintance 
and association with the Indians, and membership in a tribe, combined with a high 
degree of literary ability and thorough education, has fitted the author to understand 
the red man and to present him fairly to others." — New York Observer. 

IN PREPARATION. 

The Story of the Mine. By Charles Howard Shinn. 
The Story of the Trapper. By Gilbert Parker. 
The Story of the Explorer. 
The Story of the Cowboy. 
The Story of the Soldier. 
The Story of the Railroad. 



New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 



A 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

CTUAL AFRICA; or, The Coming Continent. A 
Tour of Exploration. By Frank Vincent, author of "The 
Land of the White Elephant," etc. With Map and 102 Illus- 
trations. 8vo. Cloth, $5.00. 

This thorough and comprehensive work furnishes a survey of the entire continent, 
which this experienced traveler has circumnavigated in addition to his inland explora- 
tions. The latter have included journeys in northern Africa, Madagascar, southern 
Africa, and an expedition into the Congo country which has covered fresh ground. His 
book has the distinction of presenting a comprehensive summary, instead of offering an 
account of one special district. It is more elaborately illustrated than any book upon 
the subject, and contains a large map carefully corrected to date. 

" Mr. Frank Vincent's books of travel merit to be ranked among the very best, not 
only for their thoroughness, but for the animation of their narrative, and the skill 
with which he fastens upon his reader's mind the impression made upon him by his 
voy agings." — Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. 

" A new volume from Mr. Frank Vincent is always welcome, for the reading public 
have learned to regard him as one of the most intelligent and observing of travelers." — 
New York Tribune. 



A 



ROUND AND ABOUT SOUTH AMERICA : 

Twenty Months of Quest and Query. By Feank Vincent. 
With Maps, Plans, and 54 full-page Illustrations. 8vo, xxiv-f- 
473 pages. Ornamental cloth, $5.00. 

" South America, with its civilization, its resources, and its charms, is being con- 
stantly introduced to us, and as constantly surprises us. . . . The Parisian who thinks 
us all barbarians is probably not denser in his prejudices than most of us are about our 
Southern continent. We are content not to know, there seeming to be no reason why 
we should. Fashion has not yet directed her steps there, and there has been nothing 
to stir us out of our lethargy. . . . Mr. Vincent observes very carefully, is always 
good-humored, and gives us the best of what he sees. . . . The reader of his book will 
gain a clear idea of a marvelous country. Maps and illustrations add greatly to the 
value of this work." — New York Commercial Advertiser. 

"The author's style is unusually simple and straightforward, the printing is re- 
markably accurate, and the forty-odd illustrations are refreshingly original for the most 
part." — The Nation. 

"Mr. Vincent has succeeded in giving a most interesting and valuable narrative. 
His account is made doubly valuable by the exceptionally good illustrations, most of 
them photographic reproductions. The printing of both text and plates is beyond 
criticism." — Philadelphia Public Ledger. 



I 



'N AND OUT OF CENTRAL AMERICA ; and 

other Sketches and Studies of Travel. By Frank Vincent. 
With Maps and Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $2.00. 

" Few living travelers have had a literary success equal to Mr. Vincent's." — 
Harper's Weekly. 

"Mr. Vincent has now seen all the most interesting parts of the world, having 
traveled, during a total period of eleven years, two hundred and sixty-five thousand 
miles. His personal knowledge of man and Nature is probably as varied and complete 
as that of any person living " — New York Home journal. 



New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 



fci'SISSSLaf: congress 



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